Second Chances
by enzhe
Summary: Naruto died. Minato never believed it. Minato found Naruto. Then Naruto pushed Minato into a wall, and ran. AU.
1. Chapter 1

He answered after two rings, though his hand had been hovering over the mouthpiece for long minutes before the call came in. All interior lights were off and the city spread out below him, glittering in descending twilight, the rush of traffic echoing forty floors up. Beyond the sounds of the city there was only the blood in his ears, the pounding of his heart, and the ringing telephone.

"Minato?"

He cleared his throat, forced a voice past the lump lodged there. "Tsunade."

"It's really him."

Three minutes and forty-one seconds later the suite was empty, nothing but the lazy sweep of security cameras moving across the opulent stillness as its previous occupant watched sky scrapers shrinking beneath him to the roar of helicopter rotors.

Naruto…

VvIvV

"I told him not to get his hopes up… if this is Kakashi telling me he's gone off the deep end again-" Kushina's assistant backed up a wary step or two as the too-often explosive woman grumbled angrily while rummaging through her pack for the mobile phone only a select few could reach her on. "AHA!" came the triumphant cry, though the scowl creasing the woman's forehead did not diminish in the least as the captured phone was snapped open and lifted to an ear.

A minute later, the cell slipped from nerveless fingers. White-faced and huge-eyed, Kushina looked slowly up at her anxious assistant. One hand still hovered near her ear, fingers still curled around the space where the phone recently rested.

"Obito…" she whispered, dazed, "…I'll regret this… but… how soon can you get us back to Konoha?"

VvovV

Naruto was having a bad day. It started with Hinata crying—and he still had no idea why. There they were, eating breakfast together, which had become slightly less awkward lately, and then suddenly there was this hiccupping sound and the next thing he knew she was doubled over in her chair with her arms wrapped around her just slightly swollen belly, gasping and sobbing as tears and snot ran down her face and Naruto floundered frantically in helpless panic. But his desperate questions about what was wrong and what he needed to do were returned with her ___snapping_ at him to "l-l-leave me alone!"—snapping! Hinata never snapped! At anyone! And then she locked herself in their only bathroom until an even-grumpier-that-usual Sasuke came to drag him off to hockey practice (Hinata's fit having made him late), full of snark and snide insults that felt more sincere than usual.

Kakashi-sensei was barely thirty-five minutes shy of on-time that day, meaning he arrived just as Naruto lost it with Sasuke's nonstop taunts and forsook suiting up in favor of clocking the Uchiha with a goalie mask. The only thing keeping him from fretting nonstop about Hinata while running a ridiculous number of suicides as punishment was the smirk on Sasuke's face. Which all led up to him being more focused on causing the bastard as much grief as possible during their practice skirmishes than on tracking the puck, which took a deadly slapshot off Kiba's stick to sail on a smooth projectory right into Naruto's head.

Fortunately, he was wearing a helmet. With the straps correctly adjusted and buckled up and all. Which was why it was utterly ridiculous that he was currently locked up in a hospital, with strong hints he really hoped he had misinterpreted pointing to not getting out any time soon. No, they had to keep going on about keeping him overnight for "observation" and how there were still people who needed to be "consulted", blah blah blah.

So he had a concussion! He got those all the time. As much as he might bluster at Sasuke's uncalled-for commentaries on the inevitable deaths of his few remaining brain cells, Naruto privately wondered how any cells of his at all—not to mention those in his much-abused head—stayed alive. He'd certainly been in enough seriously life-threatening situations to have died half a dozen times before. Did he go to the hospital on any of those occasions? …Well, that one time. And maybe a couple times when he was really little, he couldn't quite remember. But for the most part he'd been left to patch himself up as best he could and crawl somewhere safe enough to recover on his own, which suited him just fine. If he'd known how painfully un-fun and horrifyingly restricting it was to have dozens of people hovering around him, worrying over his wellbeing and telling him what was best for him, he wouldn't have wished for it nearly as frequently as a small child. In fact, he was beginning to feel increasingly less along the lines that it was ___care_ he was receiving—no, he decided, as Kakashi foiled his third escape attempt with a too-cheerily delivered suggestion that he be strapped to his bed—this wasn't care, it was underneath-the-underneath torture.

Kakashi-sensei had been acting weird a lot lately. Naruto was purposefully unobservant of the way people looked at and acted toward him, but even he couldn't pretend that there wasn't something strange about the way his team mentor had taken to staring at him. And the questions. Naruto was far too annoying for anyone to intentionally encourage ___more_ talking through the asking of personal questions—certainly Kakashi had never tried. That is, he'd never tried until the hair dye incident. Damn Kiba, damn damn ___damn_ him—the minute he got out of this wretched place, he'd beat the jerk into the pavement until his ___dog _couldn't recognize him. This wretched place that he was in BECAUSE of Kiba. And Kiba's stupid super-high-velocity-spinning slap shot. He ___wasn't_ trying to look like Sasuke, Kiba knew nothing. The dye was a matter of life and death. Heh. Dye or die…. yeah.

Now they wanted to draw more of his blood. Another blood test? Really? What was a blood test going to tell them about a concussion? Did he look suddenly diseased or something? Maybe he caught something from Hinata—she had certainly looked awful with all that crying that morning. Speaking of Hinata, he'd meant to check up on her hours ago—first thing after practice. He would force her to tell him what was wrong. Now what was he going to do? It was almost 7:00 p.m., the whole day had passed and he still had no idea what had happened to her, how seriously she might need help, heck, for all he knew she could still be locked in the bathroom…bathroom. If he didn't get a chance to pee in the next three minutes, there really would be something wrong with him. Another exasperated groan filled the room as Naruto banged his fists on the bed railing in frustration. Ooh, that sounded kinda cool… he could get a rhythm going…

He was still at it (and sounding ___awesome_) a few minutes later when Kakashi-sensei decided to make an appearance again. The first time he said his name, Naruto rudely ignored the man, much more content to continue his percussional pursuits than to go to all the trouble of adding another dirty look to the collection of glares and whines he'd been throwing at the man all day. That is, until a word of undying beauty issued forth in Kakashi's bored voice.

"…I suppose if you don't want this ramen after all…"

Abrupt silence fell as a painfully bright and hopeful face whipped up to look at the masked man.

"RAMEN?"

VvovV

Hinata couldn't decide which was worse: that she'd started crying again, or that she actually had good reason to this time. It was nearing 7:30 and she'd heard nothing from Naruto. He kept a pay-per-minute cell on him for emergencies, but it went straight to voicemail, and though she'd finally forced the words for a recorded message past her anxious tongue, she had yet to hear anything back. And he hadn't answered any of the five texts she'd sent, hours earlier, apologizing for her horrifying behavior and wishing him a really good day. Twice now she'd started dialing Neji's number—something only true desperation could drive her to—but both times she'd made herself stop, breathe, remind herself of the probable consequences, and promise to wait another twenty minutes before panicking.

Any moment now… she would hear from him any minute… he'd gotten in trouble at practice again and had to stay late to clean up, he'd missed both his bus connections, Sakura or Sasuke needed his help with something and he'd just forgotten to call—

-but no. Naruto could be called tactless, mannerless, heedless—but never thoughtless. For all that he was dense and ill-spoken and frequently misunderstood simple things, he never forgot about the people around him, or gave any less than his absolute best to honoring his relationships with them. He had been the only thing holding her together for months now and in all that time he had never let her down. It was what had brought those awful tears gushing out over breakfast—it had been so wonderful, so cozy, that this amazing warmth and comfort welled up inside her, overwhelming her thoughts and filling her foolish mind with fantasies. It was all so new and rare. It was like they were married, like Naruto was ___hers_, like he would always be there to take care of her and just be next to her—because he wanted it, not because he was the kindest of people and could never quite bring himself to walk by anyone who needed help. She'd almost lost herself in the fictional glow of it, and the harsh talking-back-to-reality she'd had to stage mentally (in her father's disdainful and disappointed voice, naturally) had hurt so bad that the grief and shame was spilling out of her before she could stop it. And then of course he had to jump to her side and try desperately to help her just like in her dreams and the only thing she could think of was to hide. What if that was the last time she saw him? What if her last memory of the most beautiful being she had ever encountered consisted of her yelling at him—something horrifying in and of itself—with endless streams of saltwater and mucus further staining her unattractive-at-the-best-of-times face? What if he was hurt? In pain? Suffering? Oh, it would be beyond terrible if Naruto was suffering! She couldn't bear it!

The sound of a key turning in the lock sent her flying to her feet and bolting for the door, heart hammering in her throat.

"Naruto-kun! You're home! Are you okay? What happened? I'm so so-" and then the flood of relief died under the blank stare of a very different pair of eyes from the one she had so gladly rushed to meet: Uchiha Sasuke was at the door.

ivIvi

He hadn't the chance to put more than one foot through the entranceway before he was rushed by a babbling girl—a crying, babbling girl. For a moment he seriously considered tactical retreat.

Naruto would never forgive him.

"Naruto is in the hospital," Sasuke said at last, looking uncomfortably away from Hinata's tear-streaked face. It was rare for the Hyuuga to lose her composure, or even make her presence known. Which was the main reason he didn't object to Naruto living with her. "Concussion," he added quickly, as Hinata appeared to be on the verge of a faint. "Not serious."

"Oh," she breathed in relief, and drew into herself, resuming her customary silence. Relieved that she seemed to be edging closer to her usual reserved and controlled presence, Sasuke stepped the rest of the way into the apartment and pushed the door shut behind him before heading silently back to Naruto's room. They were making the dobe stay the night at the hospital, and Sasuke had been sent to gather the things his teammate would need. A thread of irritation—___not _concern or worry, this was Naruto he was thinking about—tightened along his spine. It was another thing that just didn't add up about the entire strange day. First Kakashi assured them that Naruto was perfectly fine, just a minor concussion—the kind the dobe sustained nearly every other day, idiot that he was—and then Senju Tsunade, the freaking hospital director, was hovering around Naruto's room, snapping commands to a whole team of medical personnel before disappearing with a strained note in her voice and mysterious words about making certain phone calls—but no, no, Naruto was perfectly fine, Kakashi insisted—and no, they couldn't see him, no, he wouldn't be discharged soon, no, there wasn't something he was neglecting to tell them, and finally would Sasuke and Sakura just go find some other little friends to play with? He couldn't deal with them at the moment.

Kakashi knew well enough that Sasuke wasn't about to accept it. Any of it. But standing in a hospital corridor glaring at adults wasn't going to change anything, and Naruto would ask about Hinata, so he took the errand. He stuffed heavy shoes, duct tape, a couple knives, and a lock-picking set in the bottom of Naruto's old school backpack, covered them with clean jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, pajamas and underwear, and topped the lot with a plastic bag containing toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant. If the idiot needed anything else, he would come back for it. Satisfied with this conclusion, he turned to the door, only to be met at the doorway with a determined looking Hinata, dressed in coat and boots and clearly blocking his way.

"P-please take me with you, Sasuke-san," she murmured, and though he huffed in annoyance, Sasuke knew there was no arguing with her at this point. So he shrugged and let her lead the way out of the apartment. He would consider it her reward for not bothering him with pointless questions about what he was doing and where he was going and what he knew about Naruto—she'd obviously made her own accurate deductions. It was nice that she was so tolerable.

They wound their way down the dimly lit stairway of Naruto's run-down apartment building, stepping around garbage bags waiting to be taken out to the dumpsters and a bicycle with both wheels removed propped up outside a neighbor's door. A heavy metal door at the bottom led to the basement parking garage where Sasuke had stowed the beat-up moped he and Naruto shared.

"Ah, Sasuke…" he looked over to where Hinata was fastening the chin strap to her helmet. "…if you could refrain from mentioning to N-naruto that I took the moped rather than the b-bus…"

Her voice disappeared, but he understood and graced her with a slight nod. Naruto had become alarmingly overprotective of her; not allowing her on the two-wheeled vehicle was just one of many restrictions he tried to hold her to. Sasuke rolled his eyes under his own helmet. Dobe.

Their ride through town to Konoha Hospital was uneventful; Sasuke wove expertly through traffic, Hinata's hands loosely clutching the sides of his coat with Naruto's overnight bag safely tucked between them. She slid off the back of the seat the moment he brought the moped to a standstill in the parking tower, and followed noiselessly as he led the way through the double glass doors, ignored the reception desk, and set off briskly towards the room they'd been keeping Naruto in. Until he came to a sudden standstill and Hinata nearly walked into him.

A full detail of security officers held watch around Naruto's room, and standing just out of sight of the window in Naruto's door, with Kakashi on one side and the hospital director on the other—Tsunade had a comforting hand on the man's shoulder—was someone Sasuke had never imagined seeing in person, but whose image the entire world was familiar with. Konoha's Yellow Flash stood right outside the dobe's door.

VvIvV

Rin was beside herself with worry. A dozen conflicting emotions—fear, elation, disbelief, to identify a few—writhed ominously beneath the mental rug she'd shoved them under, and the lumps were threatening to peek through and compromise her professional presence. But she of all people needed to remain calm. No one else appeared to be keeping cool; even Kakashi was looking twitchy. If there had been even slightly less at stake, she would have found a quiet corner and laughed herself silly over the obnoxiously implacable man's uncharacteristic lapse in external control. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he shifted his weight to his other foot, tried leaning nonchalantly at the wall, then stuffed his hands into uneven pockets—one in his jacket, one in his jeans, all the while sending surreptitious glances at Minato, who was by far the worst of the anxious gathering.

Her cell phone beeped for the third time, letting her know that Obito had yet to pick up. If he let it ring through to voicemail, he would have the most scathing message she could come up with waiting for him—

"Things haven't fallen apart there already, have they?" came a cheerful voice, and Rin sighed into the phone in relief.

"They're falling," she said shortly. "Do we really have to hold this together for another three hours until you guys get here? And it's not just sensei I'm worried about—the kid's tried to escape three times already, and he doesn't even know what's going on! And that was before our whole entourage showed up outside his door…I heard Kakashi telling security they couldn't let the kid get so much as a glimpse of them or he'd scram before you could say 'boo'-"

There was a silence, then: "So this is really it, Rin? We found him? Everything's really coming true?"

Rin took a deep breath. "I looked over the DNA results myself. It's real, Obito."

"Just…wow."

"…Yeah. Can you please get here soon? Minato-sensei will have everyone in this building going beserk any minute now… he's already crossed that line himself…Obito…"

She imagined him wincing. "Sorry, babe, this plane doesn't fly any faster."

"Give me the phone," said a new voice, and Rin heard Kushina's strained tones coming through her earpiece next.

"How's he doing?"

"Minato-sensei? He's staring at the door Kakashi's Naruto is behind looking like he'll have a heart attack any moment, just like he's been doing for the past twenty-five minutes, and will continue to do for the next three hours. ...Pretty much "

"Naruto." Kushina whispered, so quietly the name hardly made it through the connection. When the woman spoke again, it was with a compassion that, though tinged with a certain hesitant resignation, had rarely softened her tone in recent years. "Don't make him wait for me, Rin. Let him see our…the boy. I'll get there soon enough."

"Kushina-san… are you sure? He was planning on waiting for you."

There was a chuckle that may have ended in a shuddering breath. "I'm sure." Rin waited for something else, but the line was silent for several seconds, until Obito's voice came back on.

"She's made up her mind, Rin," he stated reassuringly, and something in her chest loosened a bit, allowing her breathing to come a bit easier. "Just take care of sensei for us, keep things under control, we'll be there soon." The line went dead. Obito never made proper goodbyes.

During the course of the conversation, Rin had wandered around the corner and into an empty examination room, seeking privacy. Now she took advantage of being alone to take a few minutes to steady herself; deep breaths, a splash of cold water over her face from the sink in the corner, the soothing ritual of unraveling her hair form its bun, combing briefly through it, and resetting it in place. Kushina, Rin knew, was coming for Minato, not for the boy whose DNA identified him as the baby she had loved and lost so long ago. Where Minato-sensei had survived by keeping his hopes open and insisting on believing in the impossible—or at least highly improbable—chance that their little son was still alive, Kushina had done the opposite. For the first few years they searched together, Kushina's tireless optimism keeping them both afloat while those that loved them mourned in their behalf. Until Kushina broke.

Rin straightened her shoulders and stepped back around the corner, where Minato stood unmoving, gaze desperate and unwavering. To stay afloat, Kushina had to let their little boy go, had to stop looking, stop hoping—her heart didn't mend, but she accepted it as broken and, eventually, built a new, baby-less life. She could not let herself believe that her baby was ___here,_couldn't picture the tiny child she had laid to rest in her heart as a grown and growing boy, would never survive another false hope. She had to stay strong while Minato searched and hoped and broke again and again and ___again_.

"___But we're sure this time—it's real this time!_" Rin reassured herself, and looked up to face her sensei.

"Kushina-san will be here in a little under three hours, traffic pending," she said slowly and clearly, giving Minato time to pull himself together enough to fix his focus on her. The sharpness of his stare was almost painful when his attention flickered to her, and she felt Kakashi tense beside her. "Minato-sensei, she would like you to meet with the child now. She doesn't want you to wait all this time when you are so close."

Minato looked at her, clearly torn. Some sense of duty warred briefly with the desperation tightening the lines around his handsome features, until he said with almost childlike uncertainty,

"You're certain?"

Rin nodded, and he strode to the door his eyes had spend the past half-hour trying to see through. Tsunade reached out and grasped his arm just as he was about to turn the handle.

"Minato," the seasoned healer spoke gently, "Perhaps you should let someone introduce the situation to Naruto first. This will come as a huge shock to him. You've been waiting for this moment for all these years, but he's had nothing to prepare him for what's coming."

Behind them, Kakashi nodded. "Plus... he tends to overreact." Rin thought she caught a hint of a smile beneath the man's mask. "Though he should be in a good mood since I snuck him ramen…" now he was definitely smiling, eyes merrily squinting shut as Tsunade turned to glare at him.

Minato stood frozen, one hand on the door handle, and Rin felt her heart go out to him. Slowly, painfully, he took a step back, made his outstretched hand release the doorknob as his arm fell limply to his side. Without turning to look at her, he called her name.

"…would you, please?"

Rin nodded, and stepped into Naruto's room.

VvIvV

Naruto was feeling significantly more cheerful since consuming the three large servings of take-out ramen Kakashi-sensei had smuggled him. It was a suspicious thing for Kakashi to do—he never went out of his way if he could help it—but Naruto figured the man was feeling guilty for keeping him in the hospital and being so weird and secretive all afternoon and evening. If he weren't so worried about Hinata, and fighting his (very reasonable, he felt) fears of being confined in an unfamiliar place for unknown reasons, he'd be quite content to just enjoy the warm room and full stomach he currently possessed. Especially since he'd discovered that the handrails of the bed weren't too widely spaced to practice a handstand on.

Which is why he was upside down when the door opened again, and a pretty woman with dark hair and warm eyes stepped in.

"Hey, hey!" He greeted enthusiastically. "You're here to tell me I'm free to go, right? You don't need any more blood or anything? I need to keep some of it for myself, y'know…"

"Hello, Naruto," she answered, sounding amused and… something else. "No, I'm not here to take your blood. But I do have something very important to talk to you about."

Naruto studied her intently, forgetting for the moment that he was still upside down. "Something important? 'S not bad, right? 'Cause sometimes it's better just not to know the bad stuff…"

"It's not bad at all," she said quickly. "It's amazing. And will probably be very unexpected. Maybe you should sit?"

Oh yeah. He looked down at the mattress he was suspended over and let himself collapse on it, rolling head over heels to come popping up in a sitting position at the foot of the bed, looking expectantly into the stranger's face. She seemed to be unsure of where to start.

"My name is Rin," she said at last, slowly. "I work for your father. He has been looking for you for nearly twelve years."

Naruto felt a rush of cold shock run through him. His father? No…

"I don't have a father," he said blankly, shifting subconsciously into a position from which he could jump out of the way and make a run for it if necessary.

The woman looked sad. "I know you grew up without one, Naruto," she said softly. "But you have a father, one who loves you very much. You have a mother, too. You were separated from them just a few months before you turned three. We don't know what happened, exactly. You disappeared. But we've found you now, and-" she stopped, swallowed hard, and Naruto was alarmed to see tears in her large, dark eyes. The last thing he needed was another woman bursting into tears on him today. "—that's why the hospital staff has kept you here all these hours. They ran blood tests to confirm what Kakashi had already guessed. The results are positive. We had to make sure—"

Naruto was standing, though he couldn't remember when that happened. Her words were just starting to process in his mind.___You have a father who loves you very much._ He looked hard into the eyes of the person talking to him, searching for any hint of malice or deception. He saw many things there—none of them telling him that he was hearing anything but the truth. ___He's been looking for you…_ Naruto swallowed hard against the overwhelming fear, hope and disbelief welling up in him, vaguely aware that his mouth was moving in voiceless shock. Rin looked back, concern blossoming over her expressive face.

"Hey—Naruto—don't forget to breathe!"

Breathe. He gasped in air and flopped back to sit on the bed, reminding himself of a fish. His mind was whirling so fast he couldn't even tell what direction his thoughts were taking anymore. So he focused on the most pressing issue.

"I—I have—parents? Alive parents?"

"Yes, Naruto," she answered gently.

"And they're here?"

"You're dad's here. Your mother is on her way; she'll be here in a matter of hours."

They were silent for a few minutes; Naruto could feel his face twisting as he struggled with what to do, what to think. He had parents. They wanted him. They had been looking for him. His father was ___here._ Maybe right outside that door. In response to that last thought, his eyes snapped to the window embedded in the door panel: he could see one of the hospital people there—Tsunade-sama, he thought she'd been introduced as—her head turned away, clearly talking to someone. Could it be true? Could all this be real? Everything seemed suddenly unstable, like the room was on rockers that kept tipping different directions….

"Naruto," Rin was speaking again. He looked at her reflexively, but his eyes turned back toward the door again immediately of their own accord. "This is all very sudden, and… there is no way for news like this to come as anything other than a huge shock. What would you like to do? Would you like some time alone? Would you like Kakashi to come talk to you? Or—if you think you're ready—would you like to meet your father now?"

"My…dad…is right there? Right on the other side of that door?"

"Yes," said Rin. "Do you want me to maybe tell you about him before you meet him?"

But Naruto was already up again, moving as if in a dream to the door, feeling the cold metal handle beneath his fingers, distantly seeing Rin reach uncertainly towards him—and then the door was open, and he was looking up into the bluest eyes he had ever seen. He could feel his blood rushing with the frantic pumping of his heart, setting his ears ringing.

"D…dad?"

VyivV

**A/N: Revised version posted 4/23/2014. **


	2. Chapter 2

Kakashi knew everything was going to hell approximately two seconds before it happened. Had he anticipated it even heartbeats sooner, he might have been able to do something to prevent it. Instead he watched in mounting, helpless horror as Naruto reunited with Minato: first the boy simply stared, holding on to the door, gaping with desperate intensity at Minato's face and stumbling haltingly through a name he'd had no one to call in twelve years; this was along the lines of what Kakashi had expected. He'd watched Naruto make shattering discoveries before.

Then a flash of recognition lit the boy's stunned expression, and brought in its wake a mask of absolute, abject fear and—loathing? Kakashi felt his insides freeze.

"You," whispered Naruto. And his too-bright eyes flashed dangerously in a suddenly white face. "No." He shook his head as if to dispel a nightmare, a quick, panicked gaze making a hunted sweep of the hallway, sharpening with betrayal when they landed on Kakashi. Sasuke, who had been stoically avoiding his sensei's attempts at getting rid of him and was currently positioned slightly behind Kakashi, reacted immediately to his teammate's tension by shifting offensively and reaching for his pocket. Mental swearing took over Kakashi's thought processes. There was no way this was going to end without some sort of violence—but why?

"Naru—" Minato tried to say, dismayed and bewildered, but his son wasn't listening to anyone.

"NO!" Naruto was screaming the word now, and Kakashi's gaze flickered back from Sasuke in time to see Naruto place both hands on his father's chest and shove with all his might, sending a wide-eyed Minato reeling into the opposite wall. Naruto stumbled forward with the momentum of it, stockinged feet skidding against the floor as he pivoted and burst at a dead sprint down the hallway, one elbow coming up reflexively to fend off a security officer who stepped uncertainly into his path. Kakashi signaled frantically to the other bodyguards, hoping against hope that they could contain Naruto and get him to calm down enough to explain what the hell he thought was happening—but Sasuke was already there, brandishing brass knuckles and well-aimed kicks to clear the way for his teammate before they were both around the corner and dashing out of sight. Two officers started after them immediately while the others looked to someone—Minato, Rin, Kakashi—for direction, having been assigned to protect the kid, not protect from him.

"Naruto," gasped Minato, and leapt after his son. Kakashi managed to lurch into action in time to wrap an iron grip around his sensei's arm, and was consequently dragged forward a few steps as Minato glanced over his shoulder and snarled at him.

"Don't chase him," Kakashi warned urgently, though his better sense was telling him to make himself as small and non-threatening as possible in the face of Minato's wrath. "Do you want to confirm to him that you're a threat?"

Minato's eyes widened in horror, and he visibly forced himself to still, muscles trembling. "I can't just let him go," he whispered wretchedly. "I barely got a glimpse of him." He sucked in breath. "What did I do? Why did he react like that?"

Rin appeared at their sensei's other shoulder, eyes huge and fixed on Kakashi, her silent gaze echoing everything Minato asked. Kakashi felt his shoulders slump in defeat.

"I don't know,' he muttered, and the guilt washed up, nearly drowning him. "'M sorry, sensei…"

"Well," cut in Tsunade briskly, her professional persona naturally taking hold in the midst of chaos. "Let's approach this rationally. Kakashi, you know our patient best. I take it you didn't expect Naruto to respond to meeting Minato-kun that way?"

Kakashi shook his head mutely.

"Then there's no point in speculating on what happened, as no one here is in a position to make an educated guess. We need to figure out what to do next." Her gaze snapped to Kakashi again. "Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"

Feeling utterly wretched, Kakashi could merely shift his shoulders in a helpless shrug. "The last time he got really spooked, he hid for a week, until he finally decided to come out on his own. Not even Jiraiya could find him…" _And the closest we got was Jiraiya tracking him to the sewers_, he added mentally, but a glance at Minato confirmed the inkling that now was not a good time to introduce the man to some of the harsher realities of his son's life. _It's not like we'd have any chance of finding him even if we did start our search there._ "But I have hope that he's not quite that desperate. Once he's satisfied that no one's following him, he'll probably pick one of several safe spots he keeps in mind for this type of situation, lay low for an hour or two, and head home when things look clear. So long as we don't do anything to up his sense of how much trouble he's in."

Minato seemed to have recovered enough to be back in full command. "Call off the two who followed him," he clipped off to his security captain, who turned immediately to murmur into a radio. Kakashi was addressed next. "Safe spots?"

Kakashi tried not to sound shifty. "Eh… how much do you know about street kids, Sensei?"

To Kakashi's immense relief, Rin stepped up to help."Oh—Obito told me about this! A lot of the kids he and Kushina-san have worked with have a sort of network of hidey-holes—they try to have one within running distance of anywhere they have to spend a lot of time. It increases their chances of survival. Abandoned buildings, underground metro station bathrooms, sheltered fire escapes, places like that."

_I.E. the sewers_, Kakashi thought grimly.

To his credit, Minato-sensei didn't get hung up on the street kid part (he'd discussed that much with Kakashi many times over the preceding two weeks, though the latter was very careful about which bits of data he shared) and jumped to how this information might be useful. "So he may be somewhere nearby?"

Kakashi was sad to burst this small bubble of hope. "Not likely, Sensei. Two reasons: this hospital, this neighborhood, aren't part of Naruto's territory, so he's less likely to have a local hidey hole. And two: you saw the kid who attacked your security people to clear Naruto's getaway? That was Uchiha Sasuke, my other cute little mentee. If he was here, their motorbike was probably here. I'd be willing to bet that Naruto's not making his escape on foot."

Rin raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Uchiha Sasuke? What's an Uchiha doing running with a kid like Naruto?"

Kakashi squinted his eyes in their cheerful upside-down parody of a smile, though he really didn't feel like smiling at all. "That's a whole 'nother story. Though I must say I was impressed with their teamwork!"

"And not so impressed with my security team," muttered Minato under his breath. His security detail looked shamed. "So what's our best bet? Wait for him to return to his apartment? How do we keep a watch on the place without risking him finding out?" The unspoken message was clear: we are re-finding my son, and I am not taking my eyes off of him ever again. Silence fell as the assembled considered their options.

"Perhaps we could contact-" began Tsunade, but she was unexpectedly, if timidly, interrupted.

"Ah—excuse me," came a quiet voice from the end of the hall, and Kakashi's eyes widened when he saw who stood there. Sakura, who obviously had not obeyed his orders to go home anymore than Sasuke had, and Kurenai's little student—one he'd seen more and more frequently with Naruto of late, he realized quite suddenly. A close relative of Neji's, if he wasn't mistaken.

"These are friends of Naruto's," Kakashi introduced the two girls quickly, lest one of the adults shoo them away before he'd had a chance to determine if they might be helpful in the current crisis. "What is it, girls?"

The little dark-haired one braced herself, lifting her chin to look directly at Minato as Sakura squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I know where Naruto will be," she said clearly, and then seemed to shrink and loose the power to keep up her steady gaze as the attention of every adult present focused laser-like on her, and directed her next words to her feet. "But I will only tell you if I know it w-won't hurt him."

"Tell us what's going on, explain why you're looking for him, and we might help you find him," Sakura added smoothly, her green eyes calculating. These girls might sound naïve, Kakashi mused, but Sakura had a right to her confidence. Very little escaped her analytical abilities once she set her mind to figuring it out. They were information-gathering; playing innocent and slightly dumb, letting anyone foolish enough underestimate them while they ran interference for their friend. Minato turned a quirked eyebrow to Kakashi, questioning.

"Maa… I'd listen to them," Kakashi vouched, and prayed to anyone listening that nothing bad would come of this as his mentor's face sparked with renewed hope.

viIiv

Sasuke trailed Namikaze's guards until they slid back through the hospital doors and stayed there, the best reassurance he was going to get that they really had been called back and hadn't pulled off his tail as some sort of trap. He'd managed to get both pursuants hot-footing it after him while Hinata guided Naruto to the moped. The dobe'd better have made it out okay.

Satisfied that his next job was to make himself scarce, Sasuke turned away from his view of the hospital. And nearly leapt out of his skin as a lithe section of shadow stepped forward to meet him.

"Sasuke," Itachi greeted tonelessly. There was the slightest of creases between the dark eyes that emerged from the blackest recesses of the alleyway the brothers were skulking in. Sasuke fought hard to suppress the audible swallow and hitched breathing that would give away the fright Itachi'd just set in him and scowled instead.

"Itachi—the hell you doing here?"

"I believe I have the greater right to questions here, little brother," replied Itachi smoothly, and Sasuke knew the man was taking in every detail of his appearance. Somewhat belately, his right hand moved behind his back, managing to make the move casual even if Itachi would never fall for it. If only he'd hit that final growth spurt that would prevent Itachi from looming over him the way he was now.

"Why," continued the elder Uchiha, his tone just a tad too passive to work as conversational, "have you spent much of the previous three hours—most likely longer than that—in the hospital or traveling between Naruto's home and the hospital, followed by a sprint through downtown Konoha that ended with hiding on a by-street wearing brass knuckles (which I was told you no longer owned) and Naruto's hockey jersey?"

"You're stalking me again!" Sasuke accused, enraged. Itachi merely raised an eyebrow at him.

Uchiha Sasuke answered to no one…with one exception. His brother. Anyone else he could out-glare, out-class, or simply ignore while doing whatever he pleased. All Itachi had to do was _look_ at him, and the words GAME OVER flashed vindictively behind Sasuke's eyelids. Itachi must have checked up on him when he didn't show for dinner. Damn. He thought he'd managed to hide his acquisition of a new cell phone chip cleverly enough that Itachi would still be tracking the old one. Stupid overprotective psychotic genius brother.

Despite his best efforts at affected nonchalance, Itachi sensed his foolish otouto's defeat and turned to walk sedately in the direction of the hospital parking garage. Hating every second of it, Sasuke slumped silently after him, having long experience with the cold reality that when it came to Itachi, resistance was futile. Besides, he was hungry. There would be dinner at home.

It wasn't until they were securely seat-belted into one of the Uchiha cars and gliding through the streets that Itachi spoke again. Sasuke was staring morosely out the window, wondering what on earth someone like Namikaze wanted with Naruto of all people, and if Naruto was safe from the man for more than an hour or two—anyone with that much money and influence would have a long reach—when Itachi's quiet reprimand pierced the air between them.

"You worried Mother."

It was all he had to say. Feeling stupid and childish, as Itachi was remarkably adept at making him feel, Sasuke pressed back into the leather seat with squirming insides. He wanted to tell Itachi what had happened—it still didn't make sense, and he wanted to see his brother's reaction, find some reassurance that the world wasn't tipping as sharply as it seemed to be—but his ego demanded he keep his silence. Itachi had humiliated him enough for one day; to acknowledge that his brother's most recent words had affected him would be the final blow to his bruised pride. So he sulked instead.

viIiv

Four and a half years as a junior high special education teacher had conditioned Umino Iruka to take adolescent crises of all shapes and sizes smoothly in stride. He wouldn't survive a day in his classroom otherwise. So when Naruto showed up on his porch, half-dressed in a hockey uniform, missing his shoes, and trembling uncontrollably, he merely pulled his door opened wide and welcomed the panicked teenager inside. And went to heat water for ramen. Whatever trouble Naruto was in, ramen was always the first step to making it better.

When he returned to his tiny living/dining room, his former student was curled into a ball on the farthest corner of his couch, head tucked behind his knees and white-knuckled hands gripping his hair. Despite a professional propensity to stay somewhat detached, Iruka's worry was mounting. He knew that Naruto would not come to him if he thought he was in physical danger—the boy would never put someone else in harm's way. Usually Naruto would seek him out to mooch a free dinner at Ichiraku's and celebrate something, or when he was desperate enough to beg for help with figuring out checking accounts or girl problems or schoolwork. Once or twice the only motive Iruka could discern was that he was just terribly lonely. Whenever he was in real—as in life-or-death, urgent and unavoidable—trouble, Naruto would hide from everyone with huge grins and embarrassing gaffes while stubbornly brushing off any attempts at aide or guidance, even from a trusted and adored mentor like Iruka.

What Iruka was seeing now didn't fit any of the behavior patterns he'd come to associate with his most resilient student. And when a steaming cup of instant ramen set deliberately in front of the boy failed to unfurl even the very edges of his trembling ball of misery, Iruka found himself fighting down the first ripples of panic.

"Naruto—are you sick? Are you hurt? What happened? Can you look at me?" Naruto didn't look at him. Iruka counted out a cautious half-minute in his head, and carefully laid out a mild threat. "Naruto—if you can't tell me what's going on, I'm going to have to make a decision ignorantly—and with the way you're looking, I'm thinking the best course of action might be to get you to a hospital—"

Ah. There was a reaction. Flinching as if from a violent attack, panicked blue eyes popped up from behind defensive knees and one hand waved frantically in front of them, as though to fend off an attack.

"NO! Iruka-sensei, no no no, not the hospital, aagh-" and the child lunged in what Iruka correctly interpreted as an escape attempt. Startled but not entirely surprised, the older man caught his former student's shoulders and pushed him back onto the couch, not entirely surprised at how strong the teenager was. If Naruto really decided to vacate the premises, there wouldn't be much Iruka could do to stop him. He caught the kid's wildly flickering eyes and maintained eye contact.

"Okay, not the hospital," Iruka amended carefully, and waited a few seconds to allow the initial panic to die down a bit. "At least not right away. How about a glass of water?"

Reluctantly, Naruto nodded, and settled back onto the couch, though his posture was no less tense. In a show of trust, Iruka left the room and went to fill a glass of water in the kitchen. He didn't know what he'd do if Naruto wasn't there when he returned, but suggesting the hospital had obviously been a bad move, and he had to do something to make up for it. If the child had come to him for sanctuary, the last thing he needed was to feel watched and caged. So he took his time clattering around the kitchen, filling a cup with ice and running the tap for a full minute before sticking the cup under it. Re-emerging into the living room, Iruka was relieved to discover a much more self-possessed looking Naruto. Much of the panic was gone, chased from the expressive features with slightly sheepish embarrassment.

"Sorry, Iruka-sensei," the boy mumbled, not quite able to meet the other's eyes while he accepted the glass of water. He still shook a bit, making the ice rattle. "I just... just..."

"It's okay, Naruto," Iruka replied, when it seemed he wasn't able to finish that sentence. "Nothing needs to happen right away—take your time, I'll just sit here with you for now. But I am worried."

"I spent all day in the hospital," Naruto admitted after a moment, unable to keep a tinge of resentment from his voice. "I got hit in the head in hockey practice this morning and Kakashi-baka-sensei used it to get me locked up there." This was followed by much not-very-coherent but clearly caustic swearing directed at Kakashi. The man apparently came from very questionable ancestry.

"Naruto," Iruka cut him off sternly. "I understand that you're upset, but that is an entirely inappropriate way to speak of your mentor."

Blue eyes flashed his way, and a belligerent retort seemed imminent, but instead the little rebel just descended back into unhappy silence. Unease spiked in Iruka's gut.

"What happened at the hospital, Naruto?"

Naruto looked at him warily, apparently struggling with what to say.

"Naruto…" Iruka used just a touch of his special 'don't mess with the teacher' tone.

The boy swallowed, hard. "They did all these tests…" his voice trailed off while Iruka did his best to project patience, support, and encouragement. "They wouldn't let me go, or let anyone in to see me…they had me sign some papers…they were really hard to read... I knew something was going on, but no one would answer my questions, not really, they just made it sound like I was kinda silly for asking—and Kakashi-sensei—" again a flash of something, anger or panic or—was that it?—betrayal, flashed across the scarred face. "He must've planned it all! I hate that bastard!" And to Iruka's unadulterated horror, Naruto's eyes filled with angry tears. "He's been weird for months—always staring at me and asking weird questions—and I ignored it 'cause I'm supposed to trust him!"

Iruka was having heart palpitations. This was it, he knew something truly upsetting must have occurred, but this was a nightmare beyond nightmares. Naruto had some deadly disease—oh, what if it was something awful, incurable? Osteosarcoma? Tuberculosis? Leukemia? Heavens knew the kid had lived most of his life in unsafe environments—the possible toxins, the probable malnutrition—Kakashi must have noticed the symptoms and taken the first chance to get the kid to a doctor—Naruto was crying, that kid never cried, he hadn't for years—

With a ragged breath, Naruto pulled himself together, hastily wiping any evidence of tears from his face. "So anyway, they kept me there forever until finally this lady came in and she told me—ah, Iruka-sensei?"

Realizing that some of his inner hysteria must be showing on his face, Iruka made a herculean effort to return to at least a façade of calm. "What did she say, Naruto?" he asked gently, wondering if he was really ready to hear the news. But no, he had to be strong, be strong for Naruto—

Who just looked at him strangely for a long moment. But somehow, seeing signs of panic in Iruka seemed to give the boy a boost of confidence, and with a one-shouldered shrug, he opened his mouth to continue his narrative. "This is the really crazy part, Iruka-sensei—you know, it was probably all just a really bad joke—"

The melodic ping of the doorbell cut him off, and both sets of eyes flew to the doorway. Naruto instantly looked cagey again. Two more rings followed the first as the two sat frozen in the living room, timed with just enough space between them to toe the line between urgent and obnoxious. Iruka sent a sidelong glance at Naruto.

"Wait here, I'll see who it is." After waiting for the teenager's half-hearted nod, Iruka stepped out to greet his second unexpected guest.

Gravity-resistant silver hair peaked over the edge of the small decorative window mounted over the front door. Iruka's heart leapt. Kakashi! Just the man he needed to see—

The door opened just enough to let him slip out onto the narrow porch and clicked softly shut behind him. Kakashi paused, caught in the act of attacking the doorbell for the fourth time.

"Kakashi-san," Iruka greeted, stern demand already apparent in his voice and not-as-amiable-as-usual face. "How did you know to come here? And what's wrong with Naruto?" But by the end of that first sentence, his stern façade had crumpled into near-frantic concern, and he was babbling on before Kakashi had a chance to do more than slightly widen his heavy-lidded stare. "Is he really sick? What can we do? It's not that serious, is it? Please tell me there's a good chance for recovery—"

Kakashi raised one eyebrow. "Naruto is sick?"

Iruka opened his mouth to retort, and then his brain caught up with him, retracing the mental steps that led to that conclusion—Naruto pale, shaking, not acting at all like his usual self; the unfinished story about being in the hospital; the hint that the boy had received startling and disturbing news—oops. He'd gotten carried away with his tendency to fear the worst again. There was no immutable evidence that his sudden worry had any basis in reality. Then what…?

Trying to regain some dignity, Iruka leveled a glare at Kakashi. "I don't know, is he?"

Kakashi looked at him with his favorite unnervingly passive gaze for a moment, then turned to pointedly take in the moped on its side on Iruka's little patch of grass.

"…No. At least, I don't believe so. Though it might explain his bizarre reaction at the hospital… he is here, then?"

Iruka crossed his arms. "He was a minute ago, but I wouldn't guarantee anything."

Kakashi sighed. "I take it he isn't doing so well?" One look at Iruka's expression answered that question. Looking tired, the silver-haired man helped himself to a seat on the porch steps. In silent agreement, Iruka settled down next to him.

"Maa… perhaps it would help if I explained. We could use the aid of someone Naruto actually trusts right now, and I'm afraid I'm no longer in that category." Iruka didn't say anything; once again his drawn face did the talking for him. Kakashi tilted his head up, saw the last bits of purple fading into never-really-dark city night sky.

"Do you remember Namikaze Naruto?"

Iruka stopped breathing. Caught himself. Started breathing again. "They found him," he said, staring. "His remains. They found him. DNA proof or whatever. A few years after he went missing. My mom cried."

"Right," muttered Kakashi. "So when WoF assigns me to a kid named Naruto, and he kinda looks like our-like _the_ Naruto, what do you think I told myself, over and over and over?"

Iruka felt dizzy, and it wasn't hard to imagine what he might have done, if he thought he recognized somebody he knew was dead. "Did you... did you know Namikaze Naruto?"

"His dad... Namikaze Minato was my WoF mentor. I was there when-when it happened. When Naruto disappeared."

Sympathy and wonder twisted in with all the other panicked things Iruka was feeling. _Naruto... are you still in there, curled up on my couch? _"You've been his mentor for nearly three years," he said, urgently. "So why-I mean how-I mean, agh, what happened today? Are you telling me what I think you're telling me?!"

Kakashi looked at him, grey eyes dark and flat. "He was dead," he said. "I told myself I was only seeing what I wished I could see. That grief brings its own insanity. What I wished for more than I've ever wanted anything... for Sensei and Kushina-san to have their son again... for that kid to be alive, and safe, and right there in front of me, how could it possibly be true? And nothing matched up, not the ages, or the dates, or anything... anything but the name, and the face I kept seeing but didn't believe could really be there to see."

"So-but-"

"But things happened, and there was a little too much evidence for me to just be crazy, and finally I started telling-telling people who were part of the search-and Minato-sensei came back to Konoha-and we got DNA samples, and then we just needed to figure out how to-how to test Naruto. And this is all classified, by the way, because we both know that Naruto, our Naruto regardless of whether or not he is Namikaze Naruto, our Naruto's life is never... never quite guaranteed."

Iruka nodded. He knew. His head was spinning. _Kakashi-baka-sensei used it to get me locked up in the hospital. They did all these tests,_ Naruto had said. _Then this lady came in and she told me- _"Tell me," ordered Iruka, barely able to keep his seat, in the twilight on the edge of the porch. "Naruto. Our Naruto. Is he...?"

Kakashi looked him in the eye. "Yes," he said.

Iruka reeled. Naruto, the child who was more alone than anyone Iruka had ever met—than Iruka himself had ever been, and he knew the meaning of loneliness—had parents. Loving parents. Parents who never stopped searching for him.

Very, very famous parents.

"Did you—did you tell him?"

Kakashi nodded, looking surprisingly miserable. "He met his father tonight. At the hospital. A family friend spoke to him first, to try to introduce the situation to him. She said he seemed eager, if stunned and somewhat disbelieving—you know how optimistic that kid is, how willing to believe—"

Iruka nodded.

"Well, he took one look at his dad, started screaming, shoved the man into a wall, ran for it, and… came here, I guess."

The recent memory of Naruto on his porch, wide-eyed and shaking, then curled up into an anguished ball in the corner of his couch, nearly unresponsive, replayed itself in Iruka's mind. Surely the news the boy had received would be terribly shocking—but traumatizing? Something wasn't adding up.

It was time to stop talking. Iruka stood, dusted himself off. "Come in," he said. "I think our Naruto is still in there."

vIOIv

Kushina's worst fears were confirmed when she stepped through the heavy oak door of Tsunade's office and was immediately accosted with her most dreaded sight: Minato, broken. Despair-turned-red-hot-anger was bubbling out of her mouth in curse words and accusations before the door had closed behind her.

"…this is why I made you promise not to put yourself through all of this again! You promised, damn it! And now you'll live through the loss all over again—Rin, I TOLD you not to let it start again—"

"Kushina," Tsunade cut in forcefully, "He is your son." In the brief seconds of repreive that Tsunade's interruption won, Rin shoved the docket summarizing the test results in Kushina's face. The percentage match was circled in both orange and yellow highlighter.

"It's… he's…Naruto… my Naruto?" The last came out as a strained whisper; Kushina's vivid eyes were impossibly wide as she stared at the paper. A moment later and the documents were trembling in her fingers; Obito pushed her into the seat next to Minato, who wasn't looking at her.

"I…this… it's not possible, it's not possible!" And she burst into tears. Pushed beyond his general inhibitions, Minato shuddered, and turned around, and put his arms around her.

"It's him," he said hoarsely. "He has your big I'm-angry-eyes, Kushina." He tried to chuckle; she just cried.

The others in the room pretended not to be there, uncomfortable witnessing the moment. Rin's eyes looked a bit glazed; Obito's one eye had long since overflown and was steadily leaking tears down his left cheek. Tsunade's face was unreadable.

The buzz of a vibrating cell phone charged the air; mechanically, Minato removed one arm from his estranged wife to remove the device from his pocket and snapped it open.

All eyes turned to stare, as though the words coming through the receiver might turn visible if their curiosity was focused enough. Minato listened, and became the epicenter of a ripple of relaxing stances as some of the strain melted from his features.

"Thank you, Kakashi," he said at last, and looked up to address the audience. "Naruto agreed to go with him," he supplied succinctly. "They'll meet us at the hotel." Holding a still stunned Kushina tightly by one hand, Konoha's Yellow Flash swept out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

"So who, exactly, is this Umino fellow?" Kushina wanted to know. She was parked grimly in the middle of the comfiest-looking couch in the hotel suite, all grey-eyed glares and forbidding body language-every crossable limb was demonstrating its crossable-ness so tightly that Minato wondered if they could ever be un-crossed. He knew she was being irritable because she so badly wanted not to cry.

"A resource teacher who worked with our s—with Naruto in grades five through eight," he supplied immediately, drawing on the carefully compiled facts he'd committed to memory from every tidbit of information he had managed to gather about their lost boy. "Kakashi said he's a good guy. Really looks out for Naruto."

Kushina was quiet for a bit. "So he's in resource, huh?" She murmured after the pause, sounding more distracted than harsh this time. Kushina herself was severely dyslexic. But no one ever told her that condition might be hereditary. Or if that was even the reason why this boy who had been her baby qualified for special education, she added to herself silently. It could be anything… she didn't know anything. Nothing. Her baby was a perfect stranger.

"What else do we know about him?" she queried quietly. Minato blinked.

"Eh… well... no hits on the name check, clean background, has good reviews as a teacher-" he cut off hastily as Kushina lobbed a decorative couch cushion at him. "Oh! You meant Naruto. Not Iruka-san. Sorry!" He smiled awkwardly. "Well… about Naruto." He took a moment to gather himself, the sheepish grin melting into nonexistence and the frighteningly sharp edges of his business face subconsciously emerging. He turned from his spot in the corner, where he had banished himself because he was trying very hard not to pace, and moved a bit closer to his wife.

"I can tell you what Kakashi told me," he said slowly, "but I'm guessing he left much of what he knows out. And what Kakashi doesn't know, only Naruto can tell. And… well, I don't think we are going to like it." Kushina said nothing and looked back at him, wide- and solemn-eyed. Minato glanced at his phone to check the time before slipping it back into his pocket and folding his hands behind his back, drawing in a bracing breath before attempting to continue. "He seems to have grown up as part of the Nine Tails gang-" but Kushina was leaping to her feet before the words were even fully formed.

"WHAT? No! They're gone! Destroyed!"

"—that's still true, as far as we know. Whatever's left of them is too far underground to be considered a true presence. Also, they've been totally inactive—since the day Naruto disappeared. Coincidentally. Or not." The last bit was muttered, his tone dark. Kushina was still gaping at him, lips jerking with unborn words. "Also, you need to see this—" Minato plowed on, carefully fishing a palm-sized photograph from his wallet as he did so, "—Kakashi took this three and a half weeks ago, look at it carefully."

Kushina stared at the image he pushed before her dazed gaze, taking in details without really putting them together as a whole. Unruly black hair, large bright bright eyes, hockey uniform, face turned slightly to the side, his focus on something other than the camera—

"My baby," whispered Kushina-

-scarred cheeks.

Three carefully carved, identical lines on each cheek, lines that would have stretched from nose to ears on the face of a small child, but marred only the rounded curves of this nearly-adult face.

Kushina's lips and fingers trembled. Minato looked away for several long seconds, and scrubbed at his face with one hand.

"Jiraiya suspects connections to Akatsuki, as well," he added after a pause, deciding to get all of the worst news over at once. "Other than that… he seems to be doing remarkably well—you know, in spite of, well, everything." He waited another moment, watching, but despite going even paler (he was glad she was already situated on the couch, as she didn't look like her legs could come close to holding her), Kushina did nothing more than continue to stare at the picture. With a sigh, he sat down beside her, reached for her unresisting free hand, the one not desperately gripping the photograph, and continued.

"There are absolutely no records of him before he registered for school, part way through what would become his 5th grade year. He had an adult posing as a guardian and had all of the required paperwork, but in the past week it's been established that all of it was forged. He, um, listed Ichiraku as his last name."

Kushina suddenly chuckled, the humor sliding thinly through the other, much darker emotions maelstroming somewhere between her head and her heart. "He named himself after a ramen stand?" Maybe her baby wasn't so strange to her after all.

Minato's fingers tightened around hers in a brief, grateful reply to her attempt at good humor. "When he registered with the school, the birth certificate he used labeled him as being, at the time, twelve years old, when really he was just barely ten. They held him back as far as they did because he didn't know how to read and showed only the most basic of math skills. That's when Iruka-san started working with him. It was Iruka-san who got him into WoF, about two years later, which is when he met Kakashi… and Kakashi, that idiot, took three years to figure out it was him…"`

"WoF, huh?" Kushina repeated softly. The Will of Fire program (generally acknowledged by its slightly less cheesy acronym) existed to corral the best and brightest of the city's youth to become the future faces and leaders of Konoha—unofficial ambassadors, hand-selected representatives of projected glory. Successful alumni were placed as mentors for new young members, providing the guidance and connections needed to allow for the greatest opportunity in whatever fields a kid showed promise in—sports, arts, intellectual pursuits, wherever they could foster a rising star. And Minato was the brightest star of all.

Perhaps it was a suiting ending, that the Will of Fire would unwittingly be the desperately sought link to recovering their perfect poster boy's greatest loss—but it felt too late, and tasted a little bitter. All those needlessly wasted years….

Minato ran tight fingers through his much-abused hair, and felt Kushina's thumb run comfortingly over the back of his other hand. The thought crossed his mind that he had missed this too much—just having her hand in his, missed feeling that they were facing the same direction, the same challenges. But it would be beyond unfair to pin that hope on Naruto, too.

"The way Kakashi describes him, he sounds just like you," he sallied onwards, purposefully ignoring his other thoughts. "Loud, rude-"

Kushina stepped on his foot.

viIiv

Kakashi tried to catch a telling glimpse or two of his passenger's face in the rearview mirror-anything to gauge where the kid was at, emotionally or otherwise-but Naruto had his forehead pressed to the cold side door window, and if his hands were fisted or twisting they were not where Kakashi could see them and drive at the same time. The uncomfortable crawling tightness in his chest and stomach showed no signs of letting up.

This was supposed to be a joyous occasion. Sure, it would be a shock for Naruto, and while there had surely been a better way to reunite him with his family, they had been as careful as they could be with the constraints of time and secrecy pressing so urgently. The slightest slip-up in planning would send the press wheeling into a hay-day of blazing half-truth headlines and grainy blown-up images-Namikaze Minato had always been a favorite cover-seller—and he _knew_ Naruto would have drowned in the ensuing media maelstrom. But that might have been the least of the disasters.

Someone had kept Naruto from them—someone far too capable to be anything but dangerous. The Namikazes had poured near-limitless money and resources into the search for their son; every detective, every information shark, every organization both legal and illegal had been enlisted at one point or another. Anyone who could hide from that relentless onslaught had an agenda and resources that, while hypothetical, must be respected—in this case, feared. Kakashi's sinking feeling that they had only discovered Naruto because someone _wanted_ them to discover him was jarringly confirmed when Jiraiya bitterly muttered out the same terrifying suspicion.

So yes, they should have handled things better. But under the harsh limits of caution and confidentiality that had to be employed, he wasn't sure they could have.

And that still didn't explain Naruto's reaction.

"So… Naruto. How do you want to do this?" Kakashi couldn't quite keep the hint of guilt, the tinge of pleading from his voice. It was too important for things to go differently this time around—without the horror and accusation flashing from his student's eyes and the bewildered hurt clouding his teacher's. He wouldn't go so far as to hope for tears of joy anymore. But Naruto had (somewhat miraculously, it seemed) allowed a second chance, and Hatake Kakashi knew far better than to waste second chances.

Silence from the back seat. Cold, eerie silence. The car eased to a stop before a traffic light and Kakashi gave himself strict mental orders not to give into the desire to bang his head against the steering wheel. Rain misted through the night air and splashed across the windshield, each droplet catching and reflecting a halo of fluorescent city lights. The stoplight turned too soon, and he pressed the gas again.

"…How are you supposed to 'do this'?"

The question was mumbled and barely audible over the soft rush of wind and water over the car frame, the muffled thrum of the motor and swish of rubber wheels over wet asphalt, but Kakashi heard the sincere wonder behind it. Which begged a good answer. How _was _one supposed to react to meeting parents one didn't know existed? And, apparently, hated? Or feared, or whatever it was Naruto had going on with Minato-sensei….

Kakashi unwound one hand from his steering wheel to scratch at the side of his head. "Ah… Well, I suppose what it comes down to it, you're just meeting a new person. You could do whatever you like to do when you meet a new person?"

Naruto shot him a very dry look through the rearview mirror. "Already did that."

Now that he mentioned it, Kakashi could think of a number of times in which Naruto had introduced himself by shouting at someone. And/or assaulting them physically. He sent a happy eye-squint back through mirror.

"Great! Then you can move right along to the next bit. Where you somehow win their lifelong love and devotion while knocking their whole world perspective onto a brighter and happier course!"

Naruto snorted and turned back to the window.

_Maybe, _sighed a voice from the entirely jaded depths of Kakashi's mind, _the gaki just can't handle it when that lifelong love and devotion is already there, and has been all along. Hatred he takes, and just stands there and grins. Honest love, and he runs screaming for the hills._

But that wasn't fair. That love _hadn' t _been there for Naruto. And that, Kakashi reflected, gripping the steering wheel all the more tightly, made all the difference.

ioIoi

_Come over? _

That was the entirety of Sakura's text. Sasuke chanced look through his cracked-open bedroom door to Itachi's wide-open one across the hall. Not the slightest sound filtered across the hallway to him, but he knew his brother was in there, watching. Sasuke grimaced at the little patch of light that was his cell phone screen before sighing and shooting back an answer.

_Can't. Itachi's pissed._

He waited for a reply, but none came. Frustration mounting, he tossed the phone onto his bedspread and stalked off for a shower.

When he came out, there still wasn't a text from Sakura. But there was an awful lot of cherry-petal hair spread across his pillow.

"Get off," he ordered, pulling the towel he'd been using to dry his hair down over her face so she wouldn't see his traitorous lips twitch into a smile.

When he looked up again, she had rolled obligingly to the foot of the bed, where she sat cross-legged in a pair of her favorite sweatpants—they used to be his—and grinned up at him before smacking the gum she was chewing annoyingly.

"I just got Hinata back to Naruto's place," she offered blithely, eyeing his shirtless torso appreciatively. Sasuke was suddenly glad he'd only taken pajama bottoms into the bathroom with him. Sakura used to fawn over him as though he was the only thing of value in the entirety of the world—back when, unfortunately, girls were nothing more than somewhat gross, hopefully disregardable presences. Now that he actually sometimes _wanted_ female attention, the only female he was remotely close to treated him just like she treated Naruto—some strange meld between sibling and punching post that she alternately defended and turned to for support. Except she was more cautious with Sasuke, more hesitant and watchful—_less warm_, complained a bit of his personality he always tried to ignore, and she never teased him (_flirted, _muttered that same bit, quite jealously) quite the same way she did Naruto. He tried to convince himself that there were certain tones of voice, certain smiles she still saved only for him, but every time she threw herself into Naruto's arms for one of his inappropriately enthusiastic twirl-you-around-and-leave-you-breathless hugs, Sasuke waged a brief inner battle that demanded he either pummel the blond to a pulp or storm off to pummel something else. And he _knew_ they rolled their eyes at each other when he nobly chose the latter and left them staring after him in their thoughtless ignorance.

So if his naked torso caught her interest, that was fine. If only he could control the blush creeping up the back of his neck to heat his ears. With his towel a little more snuggly around his neck, he took a seat a careful three feet away from her on his bed.

"Was Naruto back yet?"

"Nah—I think he'll be spending the night with his parents."

Sasuke choked on his own spit. "_What?_"

Sakura smiled, pleased with achieving such a strong reaction. "His parents, Sasuke. Namikaze Minato-san and Uzumaki Kushina-san." When Sasuke's features bled to blankness and he gave no indication that he would speak again anytime soon, Sakura decided to get on to the rest of what she had to relate. "Hinata and I talked to them. Hinata had met Namikaze-san at some sort of formal function or something when she was young and she wanted to help him. She was sure that he wanted to help Naruto."

Sasuke thought of Naruto's stricken face and doubted that.

Sakura continued. "Hinata had convinced Naruto to go to Iruka-sensei to calm down, so we were able to tell Namikaze-san where to find him." She stopped as Sasuke reeled back sharply, eyes wide with shock and accusation. How could she rat out her teammate like that? _Why _would she do that?

"Hey!" Sakura exclaimed defensively, holding up her hands to ward off his disbelief and anger. "Don't look at me like that! We asked a lot of questions first, made sure it was the right thing to do!"

Sasuke was standing now, and staring down disgustedly. "The right thing to do?" His fingers folded in tight to form fists. "The _right_ thing to do?Whatever makes you think _you _would know the right thing to do? You sure you weren't just _fangirling_ the Yellow Flash?" Some part of him flinched back from the inappropriate level of scorn in his tone, aching as Sakura drew away from him. But she hadn't seen Naruto's face! The idiot ran away like that for a reason! Even if Sasuke knew nothing of that reason….

"And what do you know?" Sakura snapped back bitingly. Her belligerence didn't mask the painful backlash of his words flashing across her eyes, though. He'd hurt her again. Damn. "They've been looking for him for _twelve years,_ Sasuke! Can you even begin to imagine? And Naruto—you know what this means for Naruto! He has a family! A family, Sasuke! That poor kid who's never gotten anything everyone deserves in life, you know, like basic security and caring and—and—and family! His mom, his mom was crying-" she was crying a little herself, now, and her babbling was sounding somewhat hysterical. Sasuke experienced one of the abrupt, illogical, and disorienting focus-changes his brain had lately been mercilessly subjecting him, watching the wetness gather and spill over in Sakura's wide green eyes. The unwelcome thought that it would be nice to—to hug her or something galloped wildly through his head, even as a part of him held onto his anger. Maybe if he just kissed her—

Kuso. _This is about Naruto,_ he tried to remind himself. _And Naruto's parents. Naruto's PARENTS. _

"Sakura-chan, are you all right?" Rage roared through the youngest Uchiha, consuming everything else. Itachi was standing in the doorway, busting in rudely while inquiring after Sakura so damn politely.

"Get _out! _Not you, Sakura-" Sasuke flailed.

"Sasuke," said Itachi seriously, "if you are going to keep girls in your room, do not make them cry." And he disappeared. Or at least returned to his watchful post across the hallway. Gripping his bangs with both hands, Sasuke sat back heavily on his bed. The ticking of his cheap plastic alarm clock measured the passing silence, and Sasuke calmed himself by reflecting that this one had lasted almost two weeks. That made it the equivalent of a centenarian among its peers, which he bought in bulk to deal with his morning tempers. He was doing better. Had been.

"…I'll be going, then," Sakura said at last. Her voice was soft, conciliatory. "I'd just wanted to talk to you about how we can support Naruto. He didn't take the shock too well, yeah?"

Another two minutes passed under plastic clock-hands.

"Fine. See ya, Sasuke."

But as she turned to climb back out his window (her bicycle would be shoved between the evergreen bushes, he knew) he shot a hand out, locked long fingers round her wrist. She stopped.

"Fine," she said again, and came back to sit on his bed. He didn't look up, but he knew she'd rolled her eyes. If Naruto'd been there, he'd be rolling his right back.

_Are you okay, Dobe?_

iTITi

Night had set in fully, and there was nothing but the reflection of him and the room he stood in for Iruka to see as he stared blankly out his front window, forgotten coffee cooling in his right hand.

Naruto's world had changed today. Flashes of overbright blue eyes—wide, panicked at his doorstep; threatening tears in his living room; shuttered and resolute as he climbed into Kakashi's car—they flickered over his mind's eye like a slideshow on replay. "Yeah, I'm not gonna run away," the boy had whispered, after appearing to half-listen to Kakashi's strained mixture of apologies, pleas, explanations, and justifications while refusing to meet either of the adults' eyes. "I'm gonna stay and fight. I always stay and fight." And then, as though not expecting them to have heard what he'd just said, he lifted his face and squared off with Kakashi. Nothing in his stance offered forgiveness. "I'll go with you," he said at last, and Kakashi looked away first, shoulders slumped in relief. Then they both headed for the car.

_Good luck, Naruto, _Iruka wished into the night. Heavens knew the boy could use it.

IoToI

"Umm, hi."

Naruto glanced at the man and woman facing him before dancing his gaze away, looking anywhere but back at them. The intensity of emotion he saw there hurt his eyes like stepping into the sun after a day locked up without windows.

"I'm Naruto."

The woman burst into tears.

Naruto stared at the floor, fighting to stay calm even as he felt Kakashi poised behind him, cutting off another possible escape. He did not look at Namikaze Minato.

"I'm sorry."

The words were low, genuine, broken, and not his. Naruto felt confusion whirl up amongst all the other emotions clamoring for attention, felt it twist across his face.

"For anything—anything to make you not want—want me," Namikaze continued, explaining things. "Not want me to be your dad. For not finding you earlier. For losing—for everything."

Naruto clenched and unclenched his hands, chanced a glance up. Across the room, Namikaze's hands were doing the same thing. A breath shuddered through him.

"It's okay," he whispered. It wasn't, but he wanted it to be. So much. Maybe he could forget. Maybe Namikaze already had. So he lifted his too-heavy head, smiled.

"My baby," whispered the woman. She held trembling fingers to her lips. "My Naruto!" And she was smiling back at him, like sunlight bouncing over ocean waves. Her other hand reached out to wrap around the man's. Namikaze.

"Naruto," said the man, "This is your mother. Kushina."

The way he said her name made her sound beautiful, and Naruto had to agree. He didn't think he'd ever seen anything—anyone—so bright, so _beautiful_. His chest hurt from looking at her, so he stared back at the carpet instead. Until two soft, warm arms reached round him, and long sweet-scented crimson hair was falling all around him, and a tear-wet cheek was pressed against his. He startled and stiffened, but her arms only closed tighter.

"Don't look so sad, baka!" He didn't know if she was teasing him or pleading with him. "This is the happiest day of my life! I won't have you scowling all over it!"

With his next conscious thought, he found himself crumpled on the carpet, trembling and clinging to Kushina. He couldn't remember anything that felt like having a mother. He never could have imagined just how much he was missing.

"Mom," he tried, lost somewhere in her masses of hair. If he never saw anything but flowing crimson again, he figured that would be all right.

vTITv

Minato watched Kushina ease their child into a more comfortable-looking position on the couch—Naruto had fallen asleep, suddenly and silently between sentences as Kushina told him stories—and didn't even try to name what he was feeling. There was too much, too much of it was conflicting, all of it was overwhelming—and did any of it really matter? What mattered was Naruto, and he was here, and sleeping, and safe. Now that the boy wasn't awake to flinch or shrink in every time he caught Minato looking at him, he could and would drink in the sight of his son until forcefully compelled to do otherwise.

Naruto fell asleep like that, Rin explained soothingly, because he was exhausted, nothing more. Minato shouldn't worry about that, at the least. His son had taken a hockey puck to the head, a mental and emotional shock of equal or greater force not long after that, traveled halfway across Konoha in a desperate escape attempt, and been retrieved only to go through even more psychological upheaval in the form of meeting his mother and re-meeting his father—without panicking this time. Of course he was exhausted. It was a good thing, this sleep.

At least Minato could see him now.

The curve of the chin, the shape of the nose—they reminded him of Kushina, just as they had when Naruto was tiny. The rest, he supposed, looked an awful lot like him. Hints of gold showed close to the scalp and in the carefully-darkened eyebrows. His cheek twitched with an unexpected urge to smile. He'd never imagined raising a male teenager who colored his eyebrows. They'd look awfully incongruous against the dyed-black hair otherwise, though.

So many things he wanted—needed—to know, so many answers he didn't know the questions to. Towering over everything else, though, was the desperation to fix—change, fight, whatever was needed—whatever was behind Naruto's reactions to him.

Memories swelled forward on the flooding tide of thought and feeling: pushing the car door shut behind him as the front door to his home was thrust open simultaneously, small hurried feet nearly tripping in their haste to reach him, the little sunshine-topped head tipping upwards in blissful excitement as short arms stretched and the happy chant peaked—_Dad-dad-daddydaddyDADDY! _

Minato swallowed hard as that beloved little face was replaced with a far more recent image: those big blue eyes widening in recognition—and fear and pain—and the name he had longed for so many aching years to hear again followed by distraught denial.

A warm hand fell softly across the back of his neck and squeezed gently; Kushina leaned up against him.

"Minato-"

He tore his reluctant eyes from Naruto to look down at her, searching.

"Thank you." _You found him._


	4. Chapter 4

It was barely past three a.m. when a bleary-looking figure slipped through the emergency exit, blinking painfully under the sudden glare of fluorescent lights that kept this stairwell lit at all times.

Obito had to give him props. The kid had, once again, evaded the entirety of Minato-sensei's specially trained security detail under high alert. Oh, the favors he could call in for saving their butts like this… Grinning evilly, he adjusted his eye patch and stepped forward with a inordinately cheerful greeting.

"Good morning!"

Oh, it was a good morning indeed. With a startled shout that evolved quickly into some very creative, if discourteous, language, Naruto fell halfway down the first run of stairs and popped up looking just like Kushina just before she either tripped over her own feet or put someone else through a wall. Shrugging his hands into his pockets, Obito rolled his shoulders in a leisurely stretch before starting jauntily down the steps towards his foul-mouthed little charge.

Naruto backed away warily, no longer even the slightest bit unbalanced, and Obito mentally praised the kid's stance. He certainly looked like he could handle himself in a fight. Ignoring the narrowed blue eyes and the distrustful glare they sent sizzling his way, Obito ambled on down the staircase, listening very carefully for the way Naruto moved behind him.

He didn't have long to wait.

"Where do you think you're going?" It was a demand, not a question, and the tone was far more accusatory than curious.

"Not sure yet," offered Obito amiably. "Wherever you're going, probably."

There was a beat of silence, Naruto appeared at Obito's side—his good side, not his blind side, which was appreciated, even if it was probably accidental—and raked his eyes over the man suspiciously.

"You work for Namikaze?" He did not make that sound like a good thing.

"Nope. Just for Uzumaki."

Naruto's eyes widened dramatically. "You work for my mom?" There was a hint of longing at the end of that question—as though it was tailed by so many more. Probably all of the things the kid was still afraid to ask. Having answered the one question Naruto'd voiced out loud, Obito didn't bother to reply, just kept on trudging down the stairs. They passed the door leading out to the floor below Minato's suite: Level 16, it read. Obito frowned in dismay. Sixteen flights of stairs to go? His knees would kill him for this!

Not quite suppressing a long-suffering sigh, Obito flipped open his cell, thumb poised to begin composing a text—

-and whipped the little phone out of the way in the nick of time as Naruto sent a swift kick at the pertinent wrist from his vantage point two steps above. He caught the follow-up punch in his free hand, and found himself facing the surreal vision of Kushina's bold, angry, wide-eyed defiance sparking through Minato's blue eyes.

"You may have caught me, smartass, but there's no way I'm letting you call for backup," Naruto growled. Obito snorted.

"Fine, Twerp," he answered levelly, channeling a little Kakashi with a maddening heavy-lidded glare. "Let's not send the text that will prevent the mobilization of every police corps and security team in Konoha the second your dad figures out you've jumped ship. Which would be in three…two…"

Naruto lifted his hands in submission and backed away hastily, looking chagrinned.

"…one," counted off Obito, expertly tapping out a few swift words and hitting the send button, privately hoping that he wouldn't actually prove to be prescient in this case. A tense silence fell as they stood dumbly in the stairwell, listening for sirens or some similar dramatic outburst.

Nothing happened, and it didn't take either of them long to get bored. "Looks like we made it in time!" Obito proclaimed cheerfully, his one eye squinting happily and unwittingly weirding out his young companion, who was just beginning to fidget. Naruto already had Kakashi-related issues. He really didn't want to add an impersonator to that list. "So… how _did_ you get out of there?" pressed Obito, careful but casual. "I might actually be the tiniest bit impressed."

Naruto made a horrible face at him before turning his back and continuing on down the stairs. Obito followed dutifully.

"Fine, fine, don't reveal your ninja secrets. But seriously, I'm shocked. How did you get Konoha's Hero to take his eyes off you? " _He'd keep you in a fingerprint-accessible-only safe room surrounded by state-of-the-art laser fields and trained attack emus if he thought for a moment he could get away with it, _Obito concluded the thought silently. But best not to dwell on the more… zealous traits of Sensei's character when his kid already seemed unduly wary of him.

Naruto trotted down a few more stairs before answering. "Even the Yellow Flash has to pee eventually," he mumbled, perking up a bit at the end. "Yellow Flash… pee…hehe…"

"It's been done before," Obito cut in dryly. "Trust me."

"How _did_ Namikaze get so respected with such a stupid nickname?" Naruto wondered.

"Kid," returned Obito easily, "You may not like him, but the fact of the matter is this: your dad's made of Awesome."

He expected some sort of attempt at a snarky retort, but what he thought Naruto mumbled wasn't that at all. "Eh? Come again?"

"'S not that I don't like him," repeated Naruto, still mumbling. "Just didn't want him to turn out to be my dad."

Obito's eye widened. "It'd be great if you could make that make sense to me, Kid."

But Naruto just huffed and quickened his pace. Two more flights were descended in silence. Then:

"…I don't suppose you'll just let me lose you?" Naruto asked, sounding charmingly hopefully.

"Oh, you could totally ditch me," Obito replied affably, "but then you'd end up spending the rest of the day handcuffed to a table leg or something. And that's just what your mom would do." Naruto sighed resignedly, and Obito glanced at the placard on the door they were rounding the corner by: 12, it said. Twelve floors to go, and his knee was already throbbing.

"Yo, Naruto. Since you're already caught and all—" he paused as a pissed blue eye looked back at him, "—what I was gonna say is, why not just take the elevator?"

There was another pause as Naruto slowed to a standstill. "Oh yeah," the brat admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Guess we could do that. Then I might not be so late…"

"Late for what?"

They headed through the Level 11 door and padded down the plush corridor to the elevators. Naruto seemed to internally debate something, ending with a shrug.

"Work. Gotta pay the bills somehow, right?"

"…Right," agreed Obito, somewhat belatedly. The kid wasn't even fifteen and he was getting up at three a.m. to go to work? "What sort of work?"

Naruto mashed the elevator call button and grinned up at him. Now that he'd resigned himself to being shadowed, he didn't seem too terribly peeved about having Obito for company. "You'll see!"

oiOio

"You drive a bus."

Naruto grinned.

"You—you drive a bus_._ _You _drive a _bus_. _You drive a bus?"_

The brat's grin was looking just a tad bit manic, and was joined by a gleeful chuckle. Obito had a bad feeling about this. At least Kakashi wasn't around to arch an eyebrow at his oh-so-articulate reaction to this new development.

When he'd followed Naruto's directions to what appeared to be a bus base (the kid'd pointed out that if he was going to be a pain in the rear and follow him around all day, he might as well get them where they were going by car)—there was a smallish building that seemed to house offices and some sort of lounge for drivers, with a dozen or so huge buses (coaches, Naruto corrected) parked in what could only be described as a freakin' huge garage—he'd wondered if Naruto was, like, a bus drivers' lounge janitor, or maybe a junior security guard or something. To his mounting horror, the not-quite-fifteen-year-old had sauntered through several authorized-personnel-only type doors, swiping a security card each time and jauntily greeting the two other (much, much older) workers they passed, retrieved a uniform, and in no time at all was climbing into the driver's seat of a ginormous bendy bus (articulated coach, the brat corrected again) looking far too young to possibly belong there.

Although the admittedly dashing uniform cap did help.

"Yep!" The chortles following that affirmative answer did little to ease Obito's growing alarm.

"How is this even legal?" He demanded, not at all rhetorically. Knowing that the kid zipped around the city on a shared moped was one thing. Seeing that he was apparently a fully legitimate employee of one of Konoha's very respected public transportation providers was throwing poor Obito for a very different kind of loop.

"You owe 13.5 yen in fare," replied Naruto impishly, pulling a little lever that set the hydraulic pumps huffing. "Then it will be legal."

When Obito sputtered, Naruto relented just a bit.

"Eh, relax, Uchiha! I let people ride for free all the time. We'll let you get away with it just this once." With the engines revved and roaring to life, the leviathan of a vehicle pulled smoothly out of the garage, Naruto whistling carelessly as he maneuvered his coach effortlessly through the suddenly too-small looking exit. Still spluttering half-formed negations, Obito grabbed a handle bar and held on for dear life.

ToToT

Minato read the text again. And again. He could read it multiple times per second, in fact.

_I got him Trust me_

Sent from Obito's phone at 3:07 a.m. that morning. It was now a quarter to five. Kushina appeared at his elbow, brandishing a tall glass of water, two sleeping pills and her There Is No Compromise face. Minato was immediately on the defensive.

"Kushina…" he muttered warningly, backing away.

"Either you take care of yourself, or I take care of you. You know how it goes."

"I'm a grown man! This is not a situation where I can just humor you-"

"_Humor_ me?" everything about Kushina immediately became more dangerous.

"Look, Kushina-"

"No."

They faced off in silence for several long moments, the tension mounting so high that it was all Minato could do not to twitch. Kushina, of course, already was. One foot was tapping, the lines in her furrowed brow kept intensifying, and the hand clutching the glass of water was threatening to shatter the delicate vessel it held. Then, suddenly, everything about her softened.

"Minato—Minato, I do understand. You've given everything—literally everything—to get your son back, and now that you've finally, _finally_ gotten within arm's distance, he keeps slipping just out of reach, and you're afraid that if you drop your hand even just for a second he'll disappear forever. And I'm sure there's some sort of power play going on here that makes everything that much more dangerous. I get it! I do. But the way you usually do things just isn't going to work—

"Obito and I know these kids, remember? We've spent nine years helping people get out of the kind of circumstances Naruto must've been in. So you _have _to listen to me. The harder you try to hold him, the farther he's gonna run—"

Minato was only half listening. Hotel security should be getting back to him with the surveillance tapes any minute now. He'd taken his eyes off of his son for one minute—closer to seventy seconds, maybe, but still—_one_ minute, and it was like Naruto had never even been in the room, like the hours he'd spent simply soaking in the sight of his son (his sweet son peacefully asleep) were just part of some grand illusion, and Obito just says "trust me" and leaves it at that? The cushions on the sofa were still warm when he rushed over there, and he'd wasted precious minutes searching every corner of the suite because there were guards at the door and they were alert and hadn't seen, hadn't even heard _anything_—

Just the window open a crack, but they were on the _seventeenth floor._

"You're not even listening, are you."

Kushina's voice was matter of fact and right in his ear. Minato blinked, surprised at the warm weight leaning up against him and the cascade of crimson obscuring everything below his chin.

"_Please_ sleep," she murmured into his chest, half-defeated already and radiating concern and petition that is almost impossible to resist.

But Minato didn't respond. Like all the times before that fractured everything between them until the gulf could no longer be spanned, Minato couldn't do what she asked of him.

He was waiting for Naruto.

liVil

Hinata felt a small smile tug at her lips and glad relief well up to tingle all the way to her fingertips as Naruto's coach pulled up to the bus stop right on schedule, gorgeous blond driver and all. This had been her signal that all was right with the world for nearly a year. There had only ever been one other time when she needed to see him as badly as she needed to at that moment.

Her father, when he still played a direct role in her life, had strongly disapproved of her habit of taking public transportation at every opportunity. Hyuuga did not ride public. They rode chauffeured cars with tinted windows that used the bus lanes to illegally pass other traffic if needed, which was as close to a bus as any Hyuuga would ever deign to be. But from the day Naruto dashed into the ice arena, running late and completely flustered with a Konoha Metro driver's ID still clipped to his belt, Hinata was hooked. Public Transportation became her second greatest passion.

It wasn't long before she knew all the routes by heart. It took a lot of hours of riding the wrong buses and standing shyly at the wrong stops before she could put together Naruto's schedule, as he was just part-time and alternated two different routes, both of which ran loops as far from the cheery WoF campus and affluent Hyuuga- and Uchicha-infested neighborhoods as the city's boundaries would allow. When Neji discovered where she kept disappearing to, he tried to extract a promise that she would never set foot on a public transport vehicle again in exchange for his cooperation in keeping her bus-driver-stalking habits from her father. "How can you be so foolish, Hinata-sama?" he'd asked, tone exasperated but not as harsh as the accompanying words. "Don't you know how dangerous it is for a young woman to be out alone? Particularly on that side of town…"

But it wasn't on any of her near-daily ventures into the rougher sides of Konoha that she'd been hurt. She had been at home. Home, in the exquisite and extensive gardens, watchful clan members no more than a few minutes' walk away. And she hadn't been alone.

"Hinata-chaaaan!"

With the hydraulic hiss she had so come to love, the bus doors pushed all the way open; feeling her cheeks (and heart) warm in familiar response to the enormous smile and squinted blue eyes turned to her, Hinata climbed into the bus.

xlTlx

Kakashi cancelled hockey practice. After, of course, everyone had arrived, geared up, and dutifully started warm-ups in expectation of his usual belated arrival.

He also cancelled it just for his mentee team.

"I'm sure you cute kids have lots of fun things to work on!" He told the present members of teams Asuma, Ebisu, and Kurenai, eyes squinted blithely. Sasuke smirked and waited for Naruto to thumb his nose and crow something that included the jibe "…suckers!", but his louder teammate just narrowed his eyes at their mentor suspiciously, saying nothing. The events of the previous day springing to the forefront of all thought, Sasuke, too, trained his oh-so-disinterested gaze on Kakashi, analyzing anew.

Muttering under his breath, Naruto was the first to head off the rink and to the locker rooms. Sakura was next, casting worried glances over her shoulder all the way. Sasuke took an extra minute or two to frown steadily at Kakashi, hands clasped over the tip of his hockey stick and eyes shadowed by the lip of his helmet. Kiba was yelling about lazy bastards and unfairness and such, but no one bothered to listen to him.

Kakashi pulled out his favorite luridly colored paperback. He turned three pages while Sasuke watched him, hoping to make the man at least a little uncomfortable under his accusatory scrutiny.

"Hmmm, Sasuke, did you impress Itachi-kun with your brass knuckles?"

Glowering to cover what was almost a flinch, Number 34 whirled and slunk off the ice.

uiUiu

Naruto was pulling off his shin guards when Sasuke dropped onto the bench beside him. The locker room was strangely quiet with just the two of them, making the absence of Naruto's usual post-practice exuberance particularly significant. Sasuke worked his way out of his equipment in his usual silence, following the meticulous pattern he always did. While the rest of the team was happy to wear guards and pads sopped in enough stale sweat to send a wave of locker-room stench wafting over the spectator stands every time they burst onto the rink, Sasuke took (silent) personal gratification in knowing he never added to the offensive aroma himself.

Naruto called him a pansy (and paid for it with a fat lip or swollen eye every time). Sakura called him OCD.

"_Kuso,_" Naruto was whispering to himself. "_Kuso._"

Sasuke finished packing his equipment bag and kicked his teammate's foot, asking a mute question with a single raised eyebrow when the other boy turned to retaliate. Naruto turned away again quickly, snapping his locker shut and yanking his duffel over his shoulder. They headed for the door.

"I just wanted _something_ to go normally, 's all," Naruto mumbled finally, yanking the metal door open. Sakura was waiting, unnaturally quick in changing as always. It was part of her "watch me out-hockey _any_ boy" thing, Sasuke figured. She focused large green eyes on Naruto, catching the end of his semi-coherent sentence and furrowing her forehead in concern.

"How was work?" She asked anxiously. "Did you call in sick today?"

Naruto shook his head, scuffing down the hall. "Nah, I made it to work. With," he paused to send Sasuke a dirty look, "an _Uchiha _ shadow. He rode my entire route and wouldn't let me so much as piss in peace 'til he handed me over to Kakashi when we got here."

Sasuke passed Naruto's dirty look on to Sakura. He still hadn't forgiven her for ratting out to Namikaze, ruining a perfectly successful escape. Sakura had the grace to flush a little.

"So… were you with your parents all night?" There was a slightly wistful turn to her tone, as though she was just barely resisting going into full out happily-ever-after mode. They were paused at the end of the tunnel leading away from the rink now, postponing the reunion with their WoF mentor as long as possible. They'd already gone over the whole 'Naruto has parents' bomb during warm up—if getting Naruto to answer their persistent inquiries after his state of mind and being with a blank-faced, nearly toneless "my parents found me" in between pass-and-shoot runs could pass for that much. To Sasuke's surprise, this latest question actually pulled Naruto out of his slump a little. He looked up with a strange sort of half-smile pulling at one cheek, too many emotions trying to find a place on the scarred, open-book face to even begin to read.

"Heh, that's kinda cool," he mumbled, softly. "_My _parents…"

Sakura smiled back at him, encouraging and relieved. Sasuke let the tension coiling behind his shoulder blades loosen a little.

Together, Team Seven stepped out to see what Kakashi had in store for them _this_ time.

.

vxIxv

.

"Did you know he drives a bus for a living?" Obito couldn't quite keep his ire from coloring his question.

Kakashi met his gaze head-on. "Not officially, no."

"He's not even fifteen yet! Do you know how many people could take a fall for this? Not to mention he could be kicked out of WoF for working at all—"

"He used to cage fight for a living."

That shut Obito up.

"Sensei doesn't actually know that." Kakashi added warningly, after a moment.

Obito groaned. "Yet. He doesn't know that _yet._"

Kakashi's shoulders braced in silent agreement. "The bright side is that, for all intents and purposes, Naruto didn't know he was doing anything illegal. All his paperwork lists him being over eighteen. He didn't have any reason to think otherwise."

"Who the hell would believe that scrawny little twerp is eighteen?"

"People who remember the Nine-tails generally don't need convincing. No one wants to look at a kid with Kyuubi marked all over his face and just see an innocent little kid. "

A flash of pain flickered over Obito's face. "So Konoha still remembers, huh?"

"The older generation does. They don't talk about it, but they haven't forgotten."

"Damn. Poor kid."

"It's kept him alive," put in Kakashi, but he didn't disagree.

They fell into silence, listening to the indistinct murmur of voices coming from the mouth of the rink tunnel. It seemed Team Seven was conferring before returning to their leader.

"Nice group of kids you got there, Kashi," teased Obito, sending a sideways look at the taller man. "Lessee, brass knuckles, pink hair, a cussing vocabulary to put any potty-mouth rapper to shame…Kushina'll be shoving a bar of soap in his mouth every other time he opens it—"

Kakashi let out a small, world-weary sigh. Obito laughed. The three teenagers in question disengaged from the sheltering shadows of the tunnel and wandered towards their teacher, standing closer together than usual, but at least Sasuke was the only one glaring. Obito assumed that, being Fugaku's kid, the poor brat must not know how to do anything else.

Kakashi squinted cheerily. "Congratulations, Team Seven! You've just won an invitation to brunch with Konoha's Yellow Flash!"

.

ToIoT

.

The food was wondrous, as measured by abundance, aroma, and presentation. Naruto's mouth was watering before he'd had more than a glimpse of the buffet tables set out in one of the hotel's lavish private dining rooms. Beside him, Sakura's tummy rumbled, and he turned just in time to see her cheeks blossom as rosily as her hair, reddening further at his cheeky smile.

"I didn't have time for breakfast this morning!" she hissed at him under her breath, grumbling further as she heard a grunt that passed for a chuckle from the teammate on her other side. Naruto's wicked smile widened further. He was so glad Sakura-chan was here.

The bastard, too. This whole 'you have crazy-protective parents who don't want to let you out of their sight' reveal was more than overwhelming. Maybe he could understand how they felt. If he had lost his kid, and then finally found him again, he'd probably be terrified of making the same mistake again, too. What they didn't get was that he wasn't just a kid. In so many ways. Would they still look at him that way—like he was the rising sun and they'd forgotten that night could end—when they found out who he really was? A bitter thrill of rippling cold shuddered through him at that thought, and he instinctively moved closer to his teammates. Sasuke knew. Sakura mostly knew. They were still here.

_Namikaze knew, _whispered a traitorous voice from the darkest corners of his head. _He didn't want you._

_HE DOES NOW! _Naruto shouted back, face no doubt screwing up in response to the mental shout. Sasuke elbowed his arm.

"Dobe," he said quietly, looking pointedly towards the group of people moving into view. The room was designed for privacy; even when the door to the quiet hallway was open, those seated at the tables were around a corner and behind beautifully painted silk screens, safely out of sight.

There they were again, Kushina and Namikaze, his mom and… dad. His mom still looked glowingly beautiful. He was afraid he might have dreamed part of that, but the way her smile sent warmth and welcome rushing through his chest, he knew it was all real. Cautiously, he smiled back, forcing his eyes to include the man at her side. He was grateful that Sasuke was still next to him, scowl as unchanging as ever.

"Well!" proclaimed Kushina, eyes squinting shut with the force of her smile. "Let's eat,- ttebane! Hurry hurry, it's gonna get cold!"

"Oh," gushed Sakura, feeling more than a little giddy at being a part of what she still viewed as a real-life fairy-tale. "She really is your mom, Naruto!"

A deep chuckle sounded, drawing the gaze of the three teens to Namikaze Minato, who threw an arm around Kushina's shoulders. "Lead the way, honey," he offered genially, purposefully keeping his gaze from following their son too closely. Trying not to be too overtly grateful for this, Naruto relaxed just enough for his stomach to take the opportunity to growl loudly. Sakura giggled. Kushina started piling up a plate.

"I'll show you how it's done, kids. This food made be pretty, but it's _far_ too delicious to just look at. And we're expected to eat it all…."

Namikaze turned his back and, following his wife's example, started putting what seemed to be a mostly random assortment of foods on his plate. Naruto wondered if the man was paying any attention to what he was doing, and if he was feeling the same confusing mixture of hunger and nerves twisting in his belly. He waited for Sakura to take a plate before helping himself, reassured by Sasuke's stiff silence as the Uchiha fell in behind him. At least he wasn't the only one who didn't act as though Namikaze was what made the stars sparkle.

"Why are we here?" the Uchiha asked, once they all had taken a seat at a beautifully dressed table and Naruto was done snickering over the fact that half of Sasuke's plate was piled with nothing but marinated tomatoes. Namikaze raised a steady gaze to look the boy over.

"Rin's idea," he explained slowly. "My assistant. She thought Naruto might be a little more comfortable if the numbers were more in his favor."

Naruto stared at him, shocked by this blunt honesty. And a little chagrined that this RIn person was so right about him. He felt much safer shut in a room with his parents with his two teammates sitting supportively on either side of him, alert and arrayed just like their starting hockey line up. It was far better than when he'd been stuck in the hotel suite with his parents, their assistants, Kakashi-sensei, and a whole security team guarding what they thought was every exit. Well, the security team was probably still there, but they hadn't proved to be much of an obstacle so far.

Sakura kept looking back and forth between him and his parents. When it became clear that Sasuke didn't have anything else to say, she spoke up, a little hesitantly.

"Ano… Naruto… is your natural hair color red, like Kushina-san's?"

Naruto froze, then stuffed food in his mouth and turned to her with bulging cheeks and a winning, wide-lipped grin that made her recoil with a shrill, "ewww, Naruto!"

Chewing cheerfully, he returned his attention to his plate, though he could feel Sasuke's sharp gaze lazering into him from his other side. Now they'd _both_ be trying to get the answer out of him. There was an awkward pause, which he blithely filled with another oversized bite.

"It's like mine," Namikaze put in suddenly, like he hadn't quite realized he was going to say it until the words were already out. "He looks like me."

"He came out that way," added Kushina, voice soft and smile sweet but eyes sad as she watched her son stuffing his face. "We used to call him Mini-Nato. Minato and Mini-Nato. They were inseparable."

The lump of food Naruto was working on was suddenly much harder to swallow.

"Hn."

Naruto glanced up, catching Sasuke's too-familiar smirk.

"Figures. Blondie."

Naruto growled, gulping down his mouthfull. "What do you mean by that, teme?"

"You know what they say about blonds…"

Sakura giggled. "You're right, Sasuke-kun," she grinned. "I should have guessed that—no amount of hair dye could ever cover your true blondness—"

"Hey!" cut in Namikaze, looking outraged on his son's behalf. "Say that again with a hockey puck between us, and we'll see what you have to say about blonds!"

"Oh, I have," cut in Kushina smoothly. She grinned wickedly. "That particular match ended 5-0 in my favor, I believe…"

Namikaze was blushing furiously. There must be more to this story. Naruto wondered if he really wanted to know.

"I demand a rematch," said Namikaze, and something fast and fierce flickered over his famous features. For a moment he looked exactly like those giant posters of the Yellow Flash that used to hang in the ice arena. But before Naruto was quite sure if he was serious or not, a freakishly familiar goofy grin was spreading across the blond's face. "How 'bout tonight? Unless you're chicken…"

"Chicken? You better not be talking to me, _Mina-kun._"

Namikaze grinned back at his wife, then turned those sharp blue eyes on Team Seven. "I'm talking to all of you. B Rink, tonight, the blonds against the not-quite-so-golden."

"You're the only blond, Dad," mumbled Naruto, not even realizing what he'd said until he looked up and noticed that Namikaze, Kushina, _and_ Sakura were all frozen, stricken and staring. Abruptly, Namikaze rose and turned away from the table. Kushina turned wide, wide eyes on her son, a tentative smile on her slightly trembling lips. Had he really meant to say Dad?

"Tonight," repeated Namikaze, a small, fully genuine smile just lifting the corners of his lips. "It's the underneath that counts. You and me, Naruto, we'll show them what undefeatable means."

The warmth curling in Naruto's gut momentarily muffled the fear that shivered there. He shot a sideways glance at Sasuke, saw the challenge already setting across the Uchiha's haughty expression. A peek at his other side revealed Sakura's encouraging smile.

"Deal," agreed Naruto.

lTlTl

**a/n: So… the second half of this chapter was all written to distract myself from the misery of a nasty stomach flu. As I'm still running a temperature, I'm probably in no condition to judge whether it's truly post-worthy or not, but I'm indulging that little voice in my head that says supportively, "Of course you should post it! If you get reviews, think how much better this crappy day will suddenly be!" **

**That's the truth, folks. So I hope I haven't subjected you to complete and utter rubbish! I really have no idea how illness affects my writing skills. **

**Thank you so much to those who have taken the time to review this story already!**

**p.s. So I found out that I have a penchant for unwittingly choosing the least original titles possible for my stories. Turns out there's a plethora of "Second Chances" on this site. An****yone mind if I change the title to "Second Impressions"? Or something even better... in the unlikely event that my mind reveals such a thing... **

**=P**


	5. Chapter 5

_Comin home w parents T-20_

Hinata re-read the text with quivering fingers and a roll of nausea that wasn't even caused by her… condition. Naruto was bringing his parents home? To this tiny, dingy apartment? And they would be here in twenty minutes? And she would be here too?

Not that it wasn't clean. If anything, it was obsessively so. Poor Naruto. He'd been so weirded out by her incessant wiping of surfaces and re-organizing of all available items. She'd wanted to stop, really, she had—she felt bad enough about intruding on Naruto's home—but she just couldn't help it. For some reason, she couldn't catch a wink of sleep until she'd cleaned the whole place top-to-bottom—again. It was yet another side of her personality she'd never imagined existed until recent weeks.

Tea, Hinata decided, after opening and closing all the cupboard doors (not difficult; there were only three cupboards) and staring at their hidden contents. She had enough onigiri to go around, too, so long as Naruto only ate enough for three people instead of his usual six-or-seven massive helpings. Hinata giggled. It was something of a game she had going: how much food could she make and still not have any leftovers the next day? So far, the only dishes she had managed to make more of than Naruto would blissfully eat in one gluttonous sitting were those featuring vegetables. Particularly of the green, leafy, highly-nutritious variety.

They would have enough un-chipped teacups if she only served and didn't partake herself, which suited Hinata just fine. In her current state of nervousness, she'd take one sip of tea and end up helplessly hiccupping for the rest of the visit anyway. Who could imagine she would be serving tea to Konoha's Yellow Flash? Then again… could she really face such a thing? Just approaching him in the hospital the night before had been almost unbearably nerve-wracking. And what if he could tell that she was… and he would be angry at her for completely messing up his son's life… how could she explain why she was living with Naruto anyway? But—this was Minato-sama. She would do everything she could for Minato-sama!

Hinata was five years old and quietly crying her eyes out after mortifying herself, failing her father, and shaming her family when she first crossed paths with Namikaze Minato. It was the ribbon-cutting celebration for the opening of a brand new, grander-than-ever Hyuuga hotel right in the heart of the city, on land the Hyuuga had been trying to wrest from the Uchiha for decades. Everything about the event was grand: right down to the notion that the adorable kindergarten-attending heiress would make the perfect press tool when she posed with her father and cut the ribbon. What no one was expecting was that the tiny girl would begin trembling uncontrollably from fear and anxiety before losing control and, when her nearly-inaudible pleas to be excused were brusquely ignored as she was pushed into place, posed with her shaking fingers gripping a giant pair of scissors, and ordered through clenched teeth to "lift her chin and smile" by her father, wet her pants.

Needless to say, it was terrible day for Hinata. A horrible, awful, miserable day that took a giant step towards absolutely catastrophic when she felt the sudden rush of hot liquid soaking into her tights before dribbling to the pavement beneath her feet. A wash of absolute anguish and complete mortification drenched her every thought and nerve just as quickly, and her father stiffened dramatically behind her as all attending froze in sudden shock and horror. And then someone started laughing.

It was most likely one of the reporters, Hinata decided in later reviews of the wretched memory, as no one in the Hyuuga party would come close to daring such a rude loss of composure before Hiashi himself. As it was, thin, relentless fingers closed around her upper arms, and she was dragged from her father's side by one of his assistants and hustled out of sight still shaking, sobbing, and dripping. All she wanted was her mother, and that made everything even worse. She made no move to defend or assist as whoever was handling her started stripping off her ruined clothes, spewing a constant spitting stream of harshly upbraiding words she heard but didn't begin to understand. Her misery was complete; there was scarcely room for anything else in her existence at that moment. Until HE appeared.

First he was just a voice, a voice speaking more words she didn't try to understand. But she stilled and listened all the same; the tone was warm and soft and deep and so very reassuring. The harsh fingers and stressed-out spitting of the other grown-up disappeared, and the voice was still there, and then there was a steady hand on her flushed head, smoothing her hair while another hand wiped tears and snot from her face with a soft and shiny handkerchief, and at last she peaked teary eyes from behind rubbing fists to focus on the two most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.

"Hi," said the owner of the mesmerizing eyes. "Starting to feel better?"

"Your eyes are pretty," whispered Hinata, too stunned to stutter.

"Thank you." The man stood, shrugging out of his suit jacket. "Why don't you take this and put it on instead of your wet clothes? The ladies' room is right over that way. I can stand guard so no one will come in until you're done."

Hinata's hands were closing reflexively over the offered jacket before she realized what was happening. It was just like her father's nicest suit coat. The tiny girl immediately tried to give it back.

"I might make it d-d-dirty-"

"That's fine. That's what clothes are for, right?"

Hinata blinked in surprise at this statement, then stared at this strange man in astonishment, silent in her perusal. The thought crossed her mind that his hair reminded her of a bright new dandelion that had just opened up in the morning sun; she loved dandelions. Not knowing what else to do, she hugged the jacket to her and stepped obediently into the washroom to get cleaned up, feeling much steadier than she had just moments before. Though only five years old and very timid, she was a very self-sufficient little girl; with no one there to watch and make her self-conscious, it was no trouble for her to find a dry bit of counter to safely place the coat on, then to undress and clamber up next to one of the sinks and wash herself thoroughly with soap and water and dry with paper towels. Just getting clean made her feel much better, though the tears came again when she looked at her ruined dress. But she couldn't disappoint the man with the dandelion hair and blue-sky eyes who had been so kind to her, so she shrugged awkwardly into the very large jacket, pulled the flaps around her like a yukata, and peeped timidly round the heavy washroom door, where she was spotted immediately and greeted with a huge, infectious smile.

"How about that! You made even my old coat look like an elegant kimono! Just needs one more thing-" and he took off his pale purple tie and wrapped it expertly round her waist as a colorful sash, tucking in the ends and leaning back in his kneeling position to check his work before raising warm eyes to hers. "You look beautiful." He chuckled when she raised her hands to cover her blushing cheeks and the long, long sleeves of the suit coat flapped down in front of them, and was carefully rolling them up so her fingertips could peek through when her father appeared. Hinata immediately started trembling again and very nearly ducked behind the kind stranger to hide.

"Hina—Prime Minister!" exclaimed her father, and took nearly an entire second to stare in surprise before bowing in respect.

Setting up for serving tea to the former Prime Minister of Hi no Kuni in Naruto's little apartment ten years later, Hinata remembered suit coats and sad eyes and dandelion hair, fighting to find a balanced composure for the confrontation that was sure to come between her, the boy she loved, and the man she admired most. 

ITITI 

"So you gotta be nice to Hinata," ordered Naruto sternly, leading the way up the unadorned stairwell to his apartment floor. "She bursts into tears really easy and I'm never inviting you over again if you make her cry."

Kushina and Minato exchanged yet another look behind his back, but nodded quickly in agreement when he turned suspicious eyes over his shoulder to make sure they understood this latest statement. They were determined not to do, say, or even obviously think anything that might disrupt the current flow of events. Having agreed to respect Naruto's self-sufficient independence (at least for now) and hope for him to welcome them into his strange new life at his own pace, they were overjoyed when he offered to take them home with him after their brunch at the hotel. He didn't seem particularly thrilled with the idea, and had spent most of the time since grudgingly proposing it issuing directives about how they couldn't be seen in his neighborhood, couldn't take a "flashy" car to get to this neighborhood, and now about how they should be nice to Hinata-who was another WoF kid and, apparently, lived with Naruto. As parents, even estranged ones, they really had no idea what to think. Kakashi had explained that Naruto had lived alone as long as he had known him; he'd even been to the teen's apartment a few times, and explained that aside from being as messy as might be expected of a kid living alone, it had seemed livable enough. If he knew of this Hinata character's presence, he'd had some motive not to mention it. Though purposefully misleading his old sensei was not something Kakashi was prone to doing. Obito, on the other hand...

"Here we are," announced Naruto, pausing at the first door on the fourth floor corridor and fiddling with the keys he produced from a hidden jacket pocket. He looked suddenly quite nervous, turning big anxious eyes to his parents. "Uhhh... it's not much, but... It's my home, dattebayo! Doesn't look fancy or anything but it's perfect for me, 'n now Hinata... So please...uh...don't diss it or get disgusted or something... 'cause I know you guys are rich an' all…" he trailed off uncertainly.

"We're just happy to be here with you, Naruto," said Kushina, after a moment. She smiled one of those bursting smiles that generally made the receiver feel all warm and fuzzy inside while losing the ability to think clearly. Minato watched, fascinated, as Naruto proved to be just as susceptible to its charms as he always was, turning immediately to unlock the door with a bashful blush coloring his cheeks. His parents waited with bated breath as it slowly swung open to reveal the most intimate glimpse of their son's life they had chanced yet.

"I'm home," Naruto call softly, toeing off his shoes as he held the door open for his parents to come in after him. Minato caught the subtle hints of contrasting fear and anticipation in that simple phrase, and watched his son's face light up with relief and pleasure when a soft reply came floating back from the doorway at the end of the little entry-way corridor.

"Welcome home, Naruto-kun!" 

ibldi 

Obito watched Kakashi watching Rin and bit his cheek to keep from chortling. Rin, of course, was paying neither of them the slightest bit of attention, rather working away diligently at getting a rink reserved for Sensei's proposed hockey game that evening. It was a wonder she could be so completely oblivious to so luminous and obvious a pair of bambi eyes—oh, oh the irony! Obito didn't bother to smother the grin spreading across his face. But then Kakashi's gaze flickered ever so briefly to Obito and he turned away from Rin immediately, looking chagrined and guilty—at least that's how he looked to Obito's practiced eye. Now it was a sigh rather than gleeful laughter Obito was suppressing. Seriously, the number of issues that man managed to hide behind that mask of his. If he could yank 'em out and stack 'em up, he'd have a tower that would break all sorts of records. Indubitably.

Time to take action.

"Did I tell you guys about my super smart, super amazing, super gorgeous girlfriend yet?"

Even Rin looked up from tapping away at her tiny keypad at _that_ bold and gleeful announcement. "Kushina-san did mention something about an awful lot of correspondence between you and Kazahana-hime—is there something more I should be teasing you about?" Obito momentarily entertained second thoughts about his grand announcement when treated to the wicked gleam in her sweet brown eyes, but ah well—too late now!

"Koyuki-chan never stood a chance against my charms," he explained, allowing a huge grin to eat up half of his face and squint up his eye in delight. When he could see again, he checked how this news was being received.

Rin looked like she was just on the verge of actually squealing out of some strange combination of glee and excitement. Well that was good. Obito chanced a sideways look at Kakashi to gauge their other teammate's reaction.

Kakashi was looking right back at him, and didn't appear to have even _tried_ to conceal the shock widening his usual lazy stare.

"It's about time! Oh, Obito! To think she would fall for _you. _I'm so happy for you!"

Obito was torn between annoyance and pleasure over the different bits of Rin's congratulatory statement. "Why wouldn't she—oh, whatever. Thanks, Rin!"

They turned expectantly to Kakashi.

"Well?"

"You don't look like you usually do when you're joking."

"Yeesh, always the bastard! Maybe that's 'cause I'm _not joking._"

Kakashi waited.

"No, seriously. I'm dating Kazahana Koyuki. AKA Fujikaze Yukie? You know, the famous actress? …ring a bell?"

Rin was also looking at Kakashi strangely. When he continued to stare rather blankly at the Uchiha, she ventured to inquire after his health.

"I'm fine, Rin," he assured her quickly. But, to Obito: "You're dating someone." The grey gaze flickered automatically to Rin and back again. "Someone who is not Rin."

Rin slapped a palm to her forehead. "Honestly! Of course he's not dating me! What would give you an idea like that?"

Kakashi muttered something incoherent. Obito and Rin exchanged a look.

"Did he accuse us of using pet names?" Obito ventured, and Rin giggled.

"What do you mean, Honeybunch?"

"I swear that's what he was saying, Pumpkin, but between the mask and the mumbling—"

"Cut it out, you two."

"Sure thing, Poppykins!" Rin promised sweetly.

"Anything for you, Angelpie," Obito pledged.

They swallowed their snickers as Kakashi headed decidedly towards the door.

"Ah, just like the good old days," Obito sighed, between chuckles. "Hang on, Scarecrow, there's something I've been meaning to ask you—since we're on the subject of girlfriends and all—"

Kakashi sent a lazily baleful glance over his shoulder, but paused with his hand on the door handle. He was surprised to see Obito's faced cast into sudden sobriety.

"What's the story with Sensei's son and Hyuuga Hinata?"

vxIxv

"Nii-san."

Itachi turned abruptly from the array of computer screens set up across his massive desk, long, slim fingers retreating from the keypads: Sasuke would have his complete attention.

"Otouto. You should be completing schoolwork at this hour."

Not that he hadn't known for a good half-hour that Sasuke was doing nothing of the sort. Had the teen's GPS trail not shown a direct course to this very office, Sasuke would already be in considerable trouble. As it was, Itachi was mostly worried that this was still the case: that Sasuke _was_ in trouble, had finally concluded that he'd better come clean about it, and Itachi's primary concern would be discovering how much of the story Sasuke decided to leave out _this time._

Sasuke was scowling at him. "You know damn well that I'm ahead of schedule in all of my classes."

"Nothing less is acceptable."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Itachi experienced the slightest sliver of remorse for them: that sounded exactly like Fugaku. Softening somewhat, he set about re-routing the direction and tone of the conversation.

"What brings you here, Sasuke?"

The younger of the two shifted uncertainly. He was still on the threshold of the room; one of the few brave enough to go that far, really. Reaching out with one foot, Itachi snagged the leg of one of his visitor chairs, dragging it closer to his desk in invitation; Sasuke's shoulders lowered slightly in relief, and he came all the way into the room, shutting the door softly behind him.

Once he was seated, however, all progress ground to a halt. Itachi released a soundless sigh as he watched his baby brother brood away at the carpet.

"Might this, perhaps, have something to do with Naruto being in the hospital last night?"

Sasuke frowned. "He's out now."

"I would hypothesize that to be a good thing."

"Yeah, but…"

Itachi waited. His patience was rewarded.

"They say he's their son. The Naruto that went missing all those years ago. The Yellow Flash's son."

Itachi sat back, surprised in spite of himself. "You refer to Namikaze Minato?"

Sasuke nodded.

"He has claimed Naruto—our Naruto—as the child he lost twelve years ago?"

Another nod. Itachi noted, with a distant corner of his overly observant mind, that his foolish otouto looked quite miserable. The majority of his thought pathways were humming with the possible significance of this new puzzle piece, quickly recalling and categorizing all possibly correlating data into workable schemata. Outwardly, he turned calm eyes to his little brother.

"And what part of this development is most concerning to you, Otouto?"

Ah yes, he had hit the nail on the head. This wasn't about the general shock such a revelation would doubtless instigate. No, there was some particular detail his brother was troubling over.

Sasuke seemed to struggle to know what to say. "When—when Naruto saw Namikaze for the first time—he wasn't happy."

Itachi sat up straighter. "What was he, Sasuke?"

Wide, dark eyes met his.

"Scared," said Sasuke.

uiYiu

Hyuuga Hinata. Her son was sharing an apartment with _Hyuuga Hinata_.

The heiress. _That_ Hinata.

How had they missed that little detail? How had _anyone_ missed it? The Hyuuga, like all prominent and powerful people, were hunted and hounded by the press just as Minato always had been. It was another public spotlight nightmare just waiting to happen—scratch that. One that should havealreadyhappened.

Though she would earnestly thank any and all attendant kami that it had not.

Still, she could just see the headlines in her mind's eye: "_Shame of the Hyuuga: Heiress Succumbs to Street Rat's Charms_" or, perhaps: "_Hyuuga Princess Abducted: Forced to Live in Slums—_"

It was with some effort that she apprehended her open staring and turned her eyes away from the perfectly proper, spectacularly out of place traditional tea ceremony she was witnessing.

Minato was faring far better. Ever the diplomat, he looked perfectly at ease settled at Naruto's kotatsu, complimenting Hinata on how beautifully she was growing up.

Apparently, they knew each other.

Naruto, on the other hand, looked to be even more uncomfortable and fidgety than she. Kushina felt her lips twitch towards a smile at that. Poor baby. He'd never been any good at behaving in any situation that so much as hinted at formality—

"How long have you been staying with Naruto, Hinata-kun?" Kushina perked up immediately at Minato's first direct question, watching both teens to see what answers they might give—both in words and entirely unwittingly through non-spoken reactions.

"A-about two months," Hinata stuttered, blushing profusely and directing her gaze immediately to her fiddling fingers. Naruto looked up sharply, one hand reaching automatically for Hinata and a hint of challenge in the way he watched Minato. "I—I— I'm terribly sorry—I mean, I humbly apologize—for—for intruding so intimately on the life of your son—" the girl's voice had dwindled to barely a whisper, but she seemed absolutely determined to continue, and with a small amount of horror Kushina saw that she was about to prostrate herself in a bow. Fortunately, Minato intervened.

"Whatever are you apologizing for! Please, don't humble yourself so—we are the ones who owe gratitude here!" He paused to take in Naruto's wide-eyed gaze, and to allow Hinata time to find the courage to raise her own eyes. "Allow us to give you our thanks instead—I would have to be blind not to see how much of our son's happiness must be credited to you."

There was an awkward silence as Hinata far outdid any right Kushina had ever had to the nickname 'tomato', and Naruto's mouth opened and closed like a landed fish. Kushina figured that must be how she looked when the automatic reaction to speak happened before she had any idea what to say.

"So—Naruto—" Minato was forging ahead, bless him! "What do you usually do at this time of day?"

Naruto made a face. "Schoolwork."

"You take home study programs through WoF?"

Naruto nodded warily.

"I see… so that's the schedule. Hockey practice all morning, schoolwork in the afternoon, games or individual practice in the evening… pretty much how it was when your mother and I went through, too."

Hinata was still staring down at her fingers; to Kushina, she looked like she had more to say. But Naruto was all too happy about the subject change.

"Where do you go before hockey practice?"

Oops, one question too many. Naruto was pushing away from the table. "You guys sure are nosy, aren't you!"

"Don't be rude, Naruto!" Kushina interjected sharply, joining the conversation for the first time. Naruto stuck his bottom lip out, more than ready to retort.

"Na-Naruto-kun," Hinata cut in quietly, "It is the duty of parents to inquire after their ch-children—please, don't be upset—"

"Work," Naruto muttered grudgingly, after a pause. "I go to work first thing. I guess that Obito guy will tell you about it anyway."

Kushina was stuck somewhere between pride and that never-ending anguish that haunted everything having to do with her son. He was fourteen years old. He shouldn't be working to support himself. On the other hand, she knew exactly how unusual the life he had created was in comparison to where he had come from. In all the years she had spent working with street kids, she had very, very rarely come across this sort of individual success. Her eyes teared up; she couldn't help it.

"Come here, you," she said softly, reaching warm arms around her boy. He stared at her in surprise. "Oh Naruto. Don't you know that you're amazing?"

Minato was smiling too. "We're proud of you, son. Look at this place. You're doing just fine."

It was true; the apartment was small, run-down, and the furnishings nothing to boast over. But it was clean, warm, even inviting; there were at least a dozen flourishing plants, set wherever there was space, there was a fridge and a stove and, from what she could see through the cracked open door, a perfectly functional washroom. It was at least as nice as the tiny studio she had lived in through college. And the postage-stamp apartment she and Minato first shared would hardly be a step in luxury. In the end, it was a far cry from the deprived conditions she had feared; plus, the onigiri were really good.

"Did you make these?" she directed the question to Hinata, if only because she couldn't imagine when Naruto would even have _time _to cook.

"H-hai," Hinata whispered, staring at her lap again. Naruto disentangled himself from his mother's embrace, ear-splitting grin back in place.

"Aren't they amazing? Hinata's a brilliant cook! She would make an amazing wife!"

Kushina almost choked on her bite of onigiri, Hinata looked like she was about to faint, and Minato burst into a sudden fit of coughing that sounded suspiciously like uncontrollable giggles.

Naruto looked around in confusion. "What?"

xvXvx

They were late to the rink. When Kushina peaked into the bedroom—which, she was somewhat relieved—if equally confused—to see held only one twin-size bed—Naruto was discovered to be slumped over his desk, snoring slightly and drooling all over the math problems he was supposed to be completing. Minato moved him to the bed, holding onto the sleeping boy a little longer than necessary before tenderly tucking the covers round the child. He looked even younger when he was asleep.

Kushina insisted on washing the tea things while Hinata dried and returned everything to their proper places.

"You may ask whatever you w-w-wish, Kushina-sama," Hinata whispered after a few attempts at insignificant conversation. "You m-must have many ques-questions."

"Hmmm… okay!" Kushina smiled, relieved at this opening for bluntness. "Do you like living with Naruto, Hinata-chan?"

Her small companion glanced up, surprised. "Y-yes! I—I have never been so happy." It was a confession.

"Does your family know where you are?"

Hinata averted her eyes, _again._ Someone needed to teach that girl to look others in the eye. "N-not exactly. B-but they d-do not concern themselves w-with m-me anymore."

Kushina stared in shock. "You mean—you were disowned?"

Hinata barely managed a nod through the sense of shame that overwhelmed her. Surely they would ask her to stop associating with their son after learning—

"Hiashi, you giant prick," Kushina hissed under her breath, then, loudly to Hinata: "Well good for you! Nothing more suffocating than a whole clan of Hyuuga basta—I mean, uh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that, but—"

"Narut-t-to-kun saved me," continued Hinata, uncertain what to make of Kushina's unexpected reaction but determined to carry through with her plan to be completely open and honest with Naruto's parents. "I—wh-when I left, I d-d-didn't know where I could go—Naruto-kun asked m-me to st-stay with him—" she jumped as a warm arm wrapped around her.

"And he's a lucky little twerp, isn't he?" questioned Kushina with much fondness. "Eating your delicious cooking, hopefully learning some sort of manners—"

Hinata blushed and blinked back the tears that welled up at the long-lost feel of caring maternal contact. Not really conscious of what she was doing, she nestled further into Kushina's hold, half-hiding her face in a sweet-smelling sleeve. If Kushina was surprised, she kept it to herself, the child cling to her. She knew pain and loneliness when she saw it. After some minutes, Hinata seemed to remember herself and drew away somewhat, shrinking into herself at the same time. "Kushina-sama," came the timid little voice, still with that strange note of resigned resolve. "There is something I need to tell you—and M-m-minato-sama t-too-"

"Go ahead, Hinata-kun," offered a much deeper voice. Hinata squeaked in fright and leaped into the far corner of the kitchen, thoroughly startled by his presence. He rubbed the back of his head, smiling sheepishly.

"Eheh… sorry! I thought you knew I was here."

Poor Hinata blushed even more profoundly, trembling and apologizing profusely. The level of awkwardness in the tiny room was rising exponentially.

"Okay!" announced Kushina forcefully. "Enough of this. We're going to all sit down, calm down, and say whatever needs to be said without further ado. Mmmmkay?"

"Say what?" came a new voice, and they all turned to find Naruto standing in the open bedroom doorway, scrubbing a still-tired face with one hand. In the pause that followed, he looked slowly from his parents, who were looking somewhere between anxious and expectant, to Hinata, who was already kneeling obediently at the kotatsu, trembling hands fisted in her lap, his expression growing increasingly suspicious.

"Are you guys being nice? 'Cause I told you to be nice, remember?"

"Hinata-kun just said there was something she would like to tell us," Minato hastened to explain.

Naruto stared at them all a little longer, then ambled over to Hinata. "So what'd you wanna tell 'em about, Hina-chan? About the baby?"

upOqu

Minato sped across the ice, scraping comfortingly around tight corners and gliding easily over the stretches in between. He'd always enjoyed the brief minutes of warm-up before a game: the release of pent-up energy as he circled the rink, soaking in the buzzing anticipation of the crowd; the adrenaline building steadily, ready to course through his veins as he got into the game; the clearing of every thought, every emotion, until there was nothing but ice and speed and that sweet-spinning puck slamming the goal into the baseboards.

Yes, fate was definitely laughing at him today.

He had never anticipated a match as highly as he anticipated this one: the first game he would ever play with his son, one he dreamed of from those first fluttering kicks he felt with his cheek pressed against Kushina's slowly swelling belly, through the darkest moments of all those despairing years, to burst back into glorious flame when he heard Naruto agree to his offer and call him by name just a few hours earlier—

And now all he could think about was that he was going to be a grandfather. A _grandfather._ He could just hear whatever kami favored irony laughing at him.

Congratulations, Minato! Your wish has been granted; your miracle realized! You're a father again!

The father of a fourteen-year-old father.

Someone slashed _(1)_ him across both shins; he whipped his head around to see Kushina's eyes flash warningly at him as she whizzed by.

Right. Keep my head in the game.

But Naruto…!

And little Hinata, her career was ruined—she had been a figure skater for WoF—and now she was disowned—yes, Naruto's life was hard and lacking guidance, but a mistake of this magnitude? Kushina had warned him that this sort of thing happened all the time—but to _his_ son—his young, young son—

Who was, at this moment, skating as far away from him as was possible while staying within the confines of the rink.

"I wonder if you can still live up to the legends, Namikaze-san," said a bold, cold voice, and Minato turned to see Uchiha Sasuke staring him down smugly.

Minato almost laughed. What a little punk. "Guess we'll just have to see, eh, Uchiha-chan?"

Angry red tinting his cheeks at the slight to his name, Sasuke shot towards the nearest goal and smacked a loose puck into it with a little more violence than strictly necessary.

A brief whistle blast sounded. "Yo…. let's say we get this party started!" Kakashi was drifting towards center ice, a whistle dangling from one hand and a puck in the other. Minato noted Kushina helping Obito clear the extra pucks off the ice as the others drifted to the face-off spot. "So… Team Seven…" Kakashi looked over Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto, each of whom were looking a little flushed—if for difference reasons. Sasuke was still offended, Sakura was somewhere between star-struck and her usual exhilarating descent into game-rage, and Naruto… Kakashi really had no idea what Naruto was thinking. Which was quite disturbing in and of itself. "…Consider this today's training, since you sluffed practice this morning. Yes, Naruto, I know I told you to sluff, but missed training is missed training!" He inserted a happy eye smile before turning abruptly serious. "You're playing with the Bloody Habanero and the Yellow Flash. If you don't learn something deeply significant from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you're all idiots. I fully expect to see your absolute best out there."

"Hey, this is supposed to be about fun, Kakashi-kun," interrupted Minato.

"In that case, Sensei, try to leave these two cute brats—" he indicated Sasuke and Sakura by pointing his whistle at them— "in one piece. Mostly."

"Hey hey! What about me?" demanded Naruto.

"You're on Sensei's team, Naruto," Kakashi explained patiently. "Nothing will happen to you. And now—" he paused as everyone fell into formation, Naruto and Minato, or Team Blond, on one side; Sasuke, Sakura, and Kushina, subtly dubbed Team Brain, ranged against them on the other. Naruto and Sasuke stepped into the circle for the face-off, sticks ready to claim the puck. "We will play three periods of six minutes each. Two minutes between periods. Flying goalie. Ready?"

"You're going down, Sasuke-teme," Naruto vowed, a feral grin splitting his features.

The answering smirk was no less menacing. "Dream on, Usuratonkachi."

Kakashi brought the whistle to his lips, extended the puck over the center, and let out a shrill blast the moment he let it slip from his fingers.

lvTvl

Sasuke won the initial face-off, slipping the puck immediately to Sakura, who slipped it firmly against the heel of her stick and barreled down the ice with all the force of a charging bull—shocking both Minato and Kushina, who were entirely unprepared for such head-on force from a figure so slight and a personality so, well, giggly. Naruto, however, was not surprised in the least.

"Sorry, Sakura-chan!" He sang out blithely, snagging the puck before it could get halfway to his goal and reversing its path across the ice. Kushina was on him almost immediately, tag-teaming with Sasuke—and then Minato had somehow slipped into place just as Sasuke left a split-second opening, and Naruto shot it through to his father's waiting stick, where Minato swerved effortlessly around Sakura and slid across the ice in less time than should be humanly possible before lifting the puck onto the toe of his stick and lobbing it almost lazily into the undefended goal.

"YEAAAAHH!" roared Naruto, and the game was off.

Team Blond scored six points in the first five minutes, though with less ease than they had taken that first point. It took less than two minutes of play for Sasuke and Sakura to figure out that Kushina was the only one with even a chance of fending off Minato once he took off on their side of the ice; their strategy changed accordingly. By the last minute of the first period, Sakura and Sasuke were successfully neutralizing Naruto while moving the puck down the ice as Kushina fended off Minato, until Sasuke got an opening to send the puck sizzling over to Sakura, who ducked around Naruto just in time to slap it into Team Blond's goal. Kushina cheered in her husband's face. Forty seconds later, they were set up to take a shot at the goal again when the buzzer sounded, ending the first period with a deeply scowling Sasuke.

Obito passed out water bottles while the teams talked strategy for the next period; something that hadn't really happened before the first. Sasuke was out for vengeance, Sakura was still smarting from losing the puck in those first seconds, and Kushina was simply cackling with the thrill of real competition, and kept referring to Minato (quite fondly) as "That Flake".

Minato was giving Naruto tips on getting past Kushina and analyzing Sasuke's attacks; Naruto was flushed with the thrill of their so-far victory and kept thumbing his nose at Sasuke any time he could catch the other boy's eye.

They had a fair audience: Rin and Obito, of course; along with Itachi, who had followed Sasuke to the rink and was watching everything with a look that was creepy in both its intensity and intelligence; and Hinata, who had nearly burst into tears at the thought of being left home alone again, though the ride to the rink was just as awkward as she had dreaded it to be.

It wasn't far into the second period that plays started to get dirty, and Kakashi's whistle got busy.

"Hooking! _(2) _Naruto, 20 seconds!"

"Checking! Sasuke, into the box!"

"Cross-checking! Control yourself, Uchiha, you just got out of there!"

"Slashing—that's right, Haruno, I saw that. Forget the puppy eyes."

"Slashing—Naruto, do you intend to spend _any_ time on the ice?"

"Kushina-san! Not you too! Hooking! Into the box!"

By the time the Period 2 ended, the score was 9-4 in Team Blond's favor; though Minato spent half of that time as a one-man team while Naruto sulked in the box. Kakashi called only the most blatant penalties; he'd be sure to run out of players within seconds if he didn't use discretion. The game was quickly dissolving into all-out lawless street hockey—home base for Team Seven, incidentally. It was with no small amount of relief that Kakashi listened to the electronic buzzer sounding an end to Period 2.

Things were quieter for this break; Kakashi took the opportunity to approach Minato.

"You're going too easy on them, Sensei. They won't believe a word of my Yellow Flash stories after this."

Minato's eyes flicked towards Naruto.

"If that's what you're worried about, don't," Kakashi added dryly. "There's nothing that kid respects more than the flashiest tricks you can possibly pull. He's all about showing off."

And so the third period began.

XxTxX

"So that's why they call him the Yellow Flash," Naruto murmured, still looking a little shell-shocked.

Sakura was breathing too hard to answer, but the way her eyes still seemed on the verge of popping right out her head signified her agreement.

Even Sasuke looked a little dazed, but he motioned towards the scoreboard.

"You're not taking responsibility for that, Dobe," he warned. The score was 39 to 5.

Naruto shook his head earnestly. "No worries, Bastard," he mumbled, "No one would believe me…"

Sakura found her voice at last. "You're mom's nothing to sneeze at, either."

"And that's how real hockey is played," announced Kakashi a little too gleefully, popping up behind the three stunned teenagers as if he'd been there all along. "Hit the showers, all three of you. Frankly, you stink."

Naruto was dressed and toweling off his hair when Minato emerged from the shower room; Sasuke was already gone; he'd sloped off after Itachi looking almost as exhausted as Naruto felt. Naruto was mulling over his reflection, thinking that it was time for a new dose of hair dye, when his father interrupted his musings.

"Naruto. I know you won't like this, but… Kushina and I simply aren't willing to send you home alone. Or Hinata, for that matter…"

Naruto let out a long-suffering sigh. "I knew it..." But when he pushed the towel back to show his face, Minato was graced with a whimsical grin, and his heart leapt. "So…Dad… Your place or mine?"

**A/N: Eheheh. This is the longest chapter I have written. Ever. In my entire life. And that's just about twenty-six years, folks, approximately twenty of which have included writing. There must be some significance in this.**

'**Slashing' is a hockey term for hitting someone with a hockey stick. It had nothing to do with any sort of cut or laceration.**

'**Hooking' –using your stick to snag or block another player**

'**Checking' (officially, 'checking from behind) –running into another player from behind when they don't know you're there**

'**Cross-checking' –checking with both hands on the stick**

… **did I miss anything? Look it up =P**

**Also: Minato refers to Hinata as 'Hinata-kun' because, as far as I could figure from internet research, that would be a polite way to address a younger person, male or female, to whom you would like to show respect without being cold. If I got this (or any other use of an honorific) wrong, please tell me! I'm very insecure about my use of honorifics, but far too intrigued by them to leave them out completely. **

**Annnd… the prize for Most Perceptive Reviewer goes to mori3 for his/her review of Ch. 4! Yes, there is more going on with Hinata than many, including Minato, may have assumed… **

**Better hockey scenes to come in flashbacks next chapter… I hope. Those are darn hard to write. If you made it this far, THANK YOU FOR READING! Hope you enjoyed it **


	6. Chapter 6 Part 1

Something was bothering Uchiha Itachi. Being a person who felt that the best reaction to every situation (from stepping over scattered bits of smashed alarm clock to wake his violently anti-morning brother to staring down the slim barrel of his handgun at the somewhat less violent criminals he hunted) was apathetic, unruffled dignity, admitting—if only to himself—to being bothered was alarmingly significant.

Generally speaking, he would have already uncovered everything there was to know about the situation, solved all the puzzles, doled out retribution, and continued on in his quiet, unbothered way. Not counting all of the deep inner angsting and self-loathing and blaming, but that came of being Uchiha, and he was therefore helpless to stop it. Like the fangirls that chased him for it.

But these were answers he was almost positive he did not want to find. His family was functioning—not all that well, but Sasuke spoke to him on most days, and not just to declare hatred or demand answers; Mother was cooking again. Things were a bit frosty with the rest of the clan, but to put things bluntly, it made dealing with them slightly more bearable. Fugaku… Fugaku would be free again, soon, and everyone was so _hopeful_. He'd seen the light in Sasuke's eyes. The carefully categorized collections of perfect grade reports and scholarship awards and hockey trophies, organized and re-organized in whatever way his baby brother imagined would catch their father's attention best.

He should be smart. He should let their new life continue to grow, not dig everything up again looking for the grisly evidence he didn't want to find. The evidence he would need to answer the questions following one _Namikaze _Naruto as closely and relentlessly as the kid's own shadow.

Even more upsetting was this: Itachi trusted Naruto. Oh, the kid fought and lied and blustered on in a way to provide ever new and expanding definitions for the word "fool" in Itachi's personal lexicon and got involved in all the wrong ways with all the wrong families and had a hand in far too many illegal activities that he wasn't all that great at keeping secret and all too often dragged Itachi's own foolish brother into these same illegal activities—but Naruto _loved_ Sasuke, more than he loved ramen or hockey or _life_, and Itachi trusted him because Itachi loved Sasuke, too.

He had wondered, of course. He hadn't been blind to the shade of the eyes or the scars on the cheeks of the kid he had first hunted, then thrown everything on the line to protect. He connected the name—as if there could be two Naturos!—and Kyuubi's rough signature to the little lost prince who disappeared the day of the Nine-Tail's last massacre. And he felt Madara's putrid stench in all of it. Only two facts held him back: the silent-but-involved Hatake Kakashi, and Naruto's own defiant declaration of denial: "Namikaze's kid? I got nothing to do with Namikaze. But I'll fight for that kid—that little lost baby—in his memory, maybe."

The little liar. Now Itachi knew. He knew what Fugaku was up to the day Naruto disappeared. He knew who the illustrious Uchiha clan really answered to. And he could make a very good guess at where all the dots connected.

Sasuke would hate it. And Itachi. His brother was going to hate him again.

IvIvI

"I'm not going to quit my job," said Naruto, and he said it with conviction and finality.

_And so much for starting off with solving one of the 'easy' problems, _Minato thought despairingly, repressing the groan he wanted to respond with. "Naruto, I'm sorry, but I don't think it's actually much of a choice," he explained reasonably. "You're too young to hold a Commercial License. You _can't_ keep your job. It's not _legal._"

His son was, of course, completely unphased by this logic. "Never stopped me before."

"Look, Son—" Minato tried not to react to the way Naruto flinched—"Naruto—you don't have to worry about money anymore. I can set up your own bank account if you want, you can use it in whatever way makes you happy. Keep most of your independence. Just so long as you're, well, legal. And safe_. Please._"

"I don't see a problem with me driving a bus," returned Naruto, unmoved. "It's completely legal. I got the license and everything. It's a perfectly good job."

_By all that is good, _swore Minato to himself, _I have been attempting to parent a teenager for—_he glanced at his watch—_fifty-eight and a quarter hours, and I already want to hand in my resignation and let someone more qualified do what I'm miserably failing at. And I'm supposed to be a genius. _"There's nothing wrong with driving a bus once you're old enough," he began again, treading carefully. "It's a very good job, and you've supported yourself very well with it. But now you don't need to."

"Admit it, you're ashamed."

"Of you? Never—never—" Minato had to stop himself, embarrassed by the panic that crept into his voice. For a moment the only sound was the hum of the ventilation system and the agitated tapping of the teenager's foot against the carpeted floor. Like Kushina, Naruto was never still.

Naruto mumbled something. Minato hoped he'd heard it wrong. "What was that?"

"I don't need money," enunciated Naruto, which wasn't what he'd said the first time.

"Not anymore," promised Minato.

"I don't need _your _money," clarified Naruto, and with that he pushed himself away from the table and out of the room. Minato closed his eyes.

Kushina entered, many long, carefully counted breaths later.

"How'd it go?" she asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet anxiously.

Minato pushed himself off his chair, stared blankly out the window for a moment, and headed out through a different door than the one Naruto had disappeared through.

"Your turn," he said, shoulders rigid, right before the door fell shut behind him.

oIUIo

Kakashi barely restrained a long-suffering sigh. He really needed to convince that kid that bursting into his office unannounced every time life displeased him only succeeded in making both of them grumpier and moodier than their inherent dispositions already inclined them to be. Especially since Sasuke rarely _told_ him anything. He'd make a complaint in the form of a commanding statement to change whatever it was he found upsetting, or stand and glare in self-righteous anger without saying anything at all, or if it was a really special day he might break something—an entire collection of commemorative paper-weights had gone the way of the rubbish bin that way. If it wasn't for the fact that Itachi had once been desperate enough to beg, Kakashi would have called quits on any attempt to guide the youngest Uchiha mere weeks into his mentorship. As if he was up to guiding anyone anywhere worthwhile—just ask Minato-sensei.

Cue the happy eye squint. "And what's troubling you today, Sasuke?"

Sasuke just looked at him. Really hard. Like he was trying to figure out all the answers without resorting to burying enough pride to ask the questions. Kakashi pulled out his book. Gave the kid time.

"You changed the starting lineup for tonight's game."

Aha. The accusation. "Yep."

"Naruto's not on it."

Kakashi turned a page.

"He's not answering his phone."

Was that… just a tiny hint of panic creeping into the pointedly stoic voice?

Hands slammed down onto his desk. "Where did they take him?"

Yes. Definitely panic. Close the book. "He's still in Konoha, Sasuke. He never answers his phone."

"…Only because he never remembers to charge it. They didn't take him anywhere? Those Namikaze people?"

"His parents, Sasuke." He met the kid's angry eyes, wondered at the worry he saw there. "They won't hurt him. Or take him away."

"Then why isn't he on the lineup?"

Kakashi didn't bother to answer; that really wasn't any of the Uchiha's business. There was most likely a devoutly murderous stare aimed his way; too bad there happened to be some brilliantly written erotica blocking its path.

Another head poked around the doorjamb, accompanied by a polite knock on the already opened door. "Kaka-sensei? Why's—oh, hi, Sasuke-kun," said Sakura, and invited herself into the room.

"Are you here to ask Kakashi-sensei why Naruto's not on the starting lineup?"

Sasuke grunted affirmation, pleased to have backup.

"I mean—he's okay, isn't he? He didn't answer his phone so I couldn't ask him directly—"

Kakashi turned a page and let out a perverted chuckle. Sakura reddened.

"Stop reading that degrading trash in front of us, pervert-sensei! WHAT WILL NARUTO'S PARENTS THINK OF YOU, EH? Speaking of Naruto's parents—we guessed that was why he was excused from practice this morning, but the game—why can't he play tonight?"

Wisely deciding to pick his battles, Kakashi let the book disappear, and looked up to face his students.

"That's the thing, isn't it? Naruto has parents now. They have their own say in things."

"You mean they don't want him on the ice tonight?" cut in Sasuke sharply.

"Maa, they've got a lot to sort out, the three of them. And that's between _the three of them._ Now get out. Both of you."

"He doesn't like them," announced Sasuke quietly, and it was somewhere between a threat and an accusation. Sakura looked between her sensei and her teammate worriedly. "He shouldn't be forced to go with them when they appear out of nowhere after all these years. How hard could they have been looking for him?"

"Be careful saying big things when you know nothing," warned Kakashi, keeping his voice light but his meaning cold and clear as new ice.

Sasuke's fists clenched as he visibly reigned in anger; Sakura put a tentative hand on his arm. When he didn't knock it off, she tugged towards the door. Kakashi kept his gaze coolly, at last he stepped back and let Sakura lead him out. With one last pearl of Sasuke-wisdom.

"I know Naruto."

IlUlI

Hinata watched longingly as Tenten and Neji swept by, perfectly united in movement and expression as they turned through the steps of Gai-sensei's new choreography. The music swelled upwards and Tenten twirled gracefully into Neji's strong hold, muscle and grace and timing coming together in a perfect precision of movement that lifted Tenten high above her partner's head, flying over the rink on invisible wings. The scrape of blades and look of intense concentration on Neji's face as he worked to keep his partner safely aloft had Hinata biting her lip, aching and longing.

She missed the ice. _Oh, _but she missed the ice! She may not be a rising star, like Hanabi, who medaled every event she entered, even being favored to beat out Hinata for a spot on the national team in two years—but she loved the ice, loved the slip and scrape of sharp metal over a pristinely frozen surface, loved the swell of her music and the speed and the _freedom. _She did not love the pressure of competition or the way she felt naked and showcased in her pretty costumes or the disappointed look her father never tried to hide when she came in 4th, or 5th, or 6th. She always slipped and stumbled and fell when the lights were blinding and the crowds judging, but that could all be forgotten in the exaltation of a perfect spin and flawless landing in the quiet expanse of empty ice. There were those moments when she felt that _nothing _could hold her back—not friction, not gravity, certainly not Hyuuga Hiashi. The same feeling being around Naruto gave her, sometimes.

"EXCELLENT!" Tenten and Neji's exhuberant coach cheered, leaning over the sideboards and pumping both fists. Tears streamed down his face. "You have achieved a new zenith on the eternal ascension of the mountain of YOUTH! My heart bursts with joy, like lovely new flowers popping open in the springtime! Neji, your timing has improved! Tenten, your increased core strength allows you to hold that Most Difficult Pose with ever greater elegance and confidence! YOSH, my students! You have achieved all we must do for today—you must excel to even greater heights tomorrow!"

Hinata hid a smile behind a hand. She loved listening to Gai-sensei—in very small, controlled doses. Poor Neji.

Her cousin had seen her in the stands, of course; he headed her way immediately, pausing briefly to fit blade guards to the bottom of his skates. Tenten held back to speak with their sensei, giving them space. She was always so—so aware and _smart_ like that.

"Hinata-sama, what has gone wrong?" Neji queried immediately, looking her up and down as if he expected evidence of some terrible catastrophe to manifest itself immediately.

"O-oh, nothing, Nii-nii-san," Hinata managed, poking her fingers together in sudden nervousness. "It's just, things have… changed… for-for—for me…"

Her older cousins face darkened into sudden ire. "It's the father, isn't it? Stop keeping your foolish secrets, Hinata-sama, and let me give him what he deserves—"

"No! No, nothing like that!" blurted Hinata, shocked out of her stutter. "It's just—just I might need a new place to live, and—"

Neji's face cleared, though he still radiated worry to his cousin's well-trained eye. "Ah. Well, I do have several back-up plans in place, I believe with the right calls, I can have you packed and moved by late this afternoon. To which address shall I send a car?"

Oh, Neji. "Nii-san, you are always so pre-p-p-pared," managed Hinata haltingly, letting all her weak-kneed gratitude and admiration show in a most un-Hyuuga like way, and blushing accordingly. "I don't think it will be that sudden, but I'm n-not sure…"

"So there is something going on with Naruto," muttered Neji, almost to himself.

Hinata blanched. "How—how?"

"Do not believe me to be so unobservant, Hinata-sama. If his constant concern for your location and wellbeing did not give it away, your increased personal happiness most certainly did." He almost smiled as his sweet cousin blushed even more heavily, but it was chased away as a dark thought came back to the forefront of his mind. "Unless it _is_ his responsibility—in which case his response has some merit, but there is still much punishment that _must be meted out—_"

"NEJI!"

He sighed. "Yes, Hinata-sama. As we have discussed. He is lucky that I hold him in such high regard, or I would not be held back, even by your pleas."

"Naruto has done _nothing _wrong," Hinata vowed, gaze burning with that determination only one person could inspire there.

Neji studied her face; whatever he saw there, he chose to keep his silence.

"I… I'll let you kn-know," promised Hinata. "N-neji-nii-san… thank you."

IlilI

"Uh, uhhmm, Mom, I—"

"I got one question for you, kid."

Dyed-dark hair fell forward to hide suspiciously rubbed-looking eyes, fists clenched, feet twitched in the direction of the door. Kushina didn't budge, staring down the teenager before her with folded arms and a formidable scowl. It was that or burst into tears herself, and she had this hunch that a mess of sobbing mother wasn't going to ease Naruto's panic any.

He turned away from her in the guise of staring out the hotel window, but his hands weren't over his ears and he wasn't making a run for it, so Kushina decided he was politely listening for her question. She gave it bluntly.

"What do you want?"

She caught a glimpse of startled blue eyes before he flinched away from her again.

"…Want?"

"Want. And I mean that in a sincere, I-really-want-to-know, I-care-and-I-can't-guess-myself kind of way, not any sort of challenge."

There was a long silence. They both shifted around uneasily; Kushina scouted out the room, and decided on the desk and chair as a sort of temporary home base. She sat on the desk and nudged the chair around a bit with her feet.

"And, Naru-chan, if you're anything like me, you probably don't even know what it is that you want," she managed to get past a sudden and unwelcome lump in her throat, once the silence couldn't be left unchallenged any longer.

He eased up a little, and flopped back onto the bed, staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling.

"…I know what I want,"

Kushina waited.

"The only thing I can ever remember wanting… and I thought I got it, you know? When I found out about Hina-chan and the baby—and she needed me—all of a sudden I got this—this family—"

He gulped in air, pushed onward.

"—and we were doing so good, so _good_ -tebayo! I got everything all worked out! They were safe and we got everything we need and, and hockey was going awesome and driving was working out okay, Boss likes me so I was pretty much set for a raise next quarter and Sasuke an' Sakura-chan got our backs—"

His voice was growing in volume, the tone harried and frantic. Minato cracked open the door to check on them, alarmed.

"And then you came along and it was like all my craziest, stupidest dreams coming true at once except they can't all happen at the same time, not at the same time! They're gonna cancel each other out and what am I going to do about Hina-chan and Baby-chan, huh? And—and it's not safe! I'm not safe, you're not safe, Hinata's not safe—he hates, he _hates you!_"

They stared, wide-eyed, as Naruto sat bolt upright on the bed, looking a little wild and increasingly desperate as his fingers dug into the pillows and his words became harder and harder to follow.

Then he stopped, gasping.

"What am I saying, what am I saying…" their son, their found, broken, glued-himself-together son mumbled to himself, hands clutching huge handfuls of hair.

Kushina wanted to make promises. Her word was her bond, and she wanted to throw it out as a lifeline, something for all of them to hold on to. _Everything will be okay, Naruto. You're safe, baby. Mommy and Daddy are here. We won't let anything happen to you. Everything will be okay._

But she couldn't. If she and Minato had learned anything, _anything, _from their twelve year trip through living _hell_, it was that they couldn't—no matter how much they were willing to give, to sacrifice, to pay—they couldn't guarantee any of those promises.

No one could.

"Naruto," said Minato, and though his voice was quiet, Kushina recognized instantly that he was back in command; she was glad. He hadn't nearly been himself since the boy he'd have given his life to hold pushed him into a wall and ran for it the moment they met. "Naruto… maybe I don't have the right to speak to you, look at you as a father. I… maybe I lost that right for good. Forever. So maybe I don't have the right to talk to you about things like jobs and money and staying safe. But I sure as hell am not going to stop."

Naruto looked up, wary and startled and still struggling with the aftermath of his outburst.

"'Cause that's my role as a father. And even if I don't deserve it, and have no right to it, _no one_ is going to keep me from doing _everything I can_ to be the best damn dad I can be, that I lost twelve damn years of being, and no matter how many times I fail, I'm not just going to give up. So you can help us if you want to, tell me what I'm doing wrong if you want to, tell me who hates me (there're a lot of people who do, take your pick—) _if you want to, _but until you do, your mother and I are just gonna make the best choices we can, and those choices are going to involve you."

Naruto stared. Kushina wiped her eyes, cheered.

Minato just looked grim. "I am open to negotiation. As long as the press can be kept at bay, we can allow you a little more time to resolve things in your current life and get ready for a new one—but that's a matter of _days ,_Naruto. You seem to understand very well that there are people we can't hide from. Some of those people are members of the press. And once this gets out—once Namikaze Naruto, alive and well and reunited with _his family_—" Minato paused, stared his son down—"gets out, you can kiss whatever you wanted to keep of your past life goodbye, because nothing will be the same again." Minato took a breath, braced. "And that's okay. 'Cause I believe in you, Kushina believes in you, your little Hina-chan loves you, and we are going to make this family work. All of it."

Naruto gulped.

"Listen to your father, dattebane," exclaimed Kushina.

They watched, anxious, as their son looked up from under his badly disarrayed fringe. "Damn, Dad," he mumbled, voice cracking just a little. Minato let out a breath.

"I'm going to hug you now," Kushina warned.

For a few brief moments, that was all she did and all she thought: the feel of this nearly-grown boy in the protective circle of her arms, the way he still trembled a little and tried to wipe away the traitorous trails of snot and tears before his parents could see them, the scent of sweat and shampoo in his hair and the way the space just above and to the right of her heart warmed and throbbed with the knowledge that this was her _baby_, _hers, _and his heart was beating and his skin was warm and he wasn't the discarded bundle of too-tiny bones her nightmares had never stopped haunting her with. He never stopped growing and she never stopped loving and maybe, someday, she could stop grieving.

But then the moment passed and the three of them tried to move past the awkward intensity of it all with suggestions of calling Rin to get lunch figured out and checking up on security with Obito and making sure Naruto wasn't later than Kakashi for pre-game warm up that evening, and the cold knot of reality and dread settled back in the pit of her belly, because whatever or whomever it was Naruto feared, Kushina couldn't lie well enough even to herself to dismiss it. _So this is how a mouse feels. Or a fly in a web. Ugh, spiders…_

Kushina always kept her promises. She wouldn't make promises she couldn't keep.

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**A/N: **End part 1 on Chapter 6. Hopefully Part 2 will be weeks, not months, in coming. But I have free access to neither time nor computer, so I'll just do my best… leave a review before you leave!


	7. Chapter 6 Part 2

_Baby Naruto to be Laid to Rest at Last?—forensic examiners confirmed that remains found in an abandoned construction project near the Namikaze summer home matched the DNA of the disappeared toddler, missing for more the three years as of last October. An anonymous tip led to excavation of the site… _

Itachi was cross-referencing archived police reports, typing in dates and key words even as he finished skimming the article. Remains could mean so many things—

-ah. Teeth. Milk teeth knocked from a child who couldn't be more than three years old, perfectly matching Naruto's dental record. No immediately identifiable red flags on any of the reports, and if Itachi didn't pick up on any, there weren't any. No tampering with this paperwork, then. Two incisors and a molar, damaged by fire, another sliver that had been part of a fourth tooth… yes, that evidence was brutal enough. And whatever they'd burned in that barrel had certainly had the _shape _of a toddler.

Contemporary reports from alternate news sources all said the same—this was being viewed as conclusive evidence, the family asked for privacy, Namikaze's early resignation as the country's most popular PM in history touched on in some of the longer articles. Retellings of the whole, harrowing nightmare-come-reality, clips from the public pleas Minato and Kushina had made to the unknown kidnapper, remarks on the apparent senselessness of the act. There had never been a ransom note or any other kind of message from the perpetrator, who remained at large. So unsettling for such a high-profile case.

And Naruto was _alive._

Tapered fingers pinched at a furrowed brow, pressing back the warning pains of an impending migraine. He didn't get them often, but when he did, pretending to function normally became excruciatingly difficult. Moving through the next few months of articles, he watched as the public's attention was directed from the tragedy of Baby Naruto to the scandal of Minato and Kushina's split—a public fight at their son's memorial service! Kushina caught on camera throwing furniture through their Penthouse windows! Minato declaring that Naruto was _not dead—_mad from grief, the public commentators snarked with sympathy so fake the words should have changed color on the screen—.

And, juxtaposed in his mind, images of the Naruto he came to know. Memories rose unbidden, cresting with the first stages of the migraine. _Sasuke's missing again. Their mother's voice is too hoarse to be cold as she stares out the window, empty eyes tracking sheeting raindrops. She says nothing else to him, doesn't look at him, keeps thin arms clamped tight around her waste, as though applying pressure to raw wounds in danger of bleeding out. Itachi puts his shoes back on—one shoe, he hasn't had the chance to take the other off yet. His mother whispers as he turns back into the rain, half-caught words about bloody and beaten, and he knows she still sees Sasuke._

_The streets in this part of town are always dipped in a grim, grimy kind of shadow, the buildings not as tall as those in more affluent sectors but wedged so tightly together that there is no room for daylight. He stops at a safe house, trades in clothing that might identify him, scours the streets in concentric patterns centered on the spot Sasuke was found last time, semi-conscious and bleeding sluggishly from arm, forehead and nose, trembling and grinning ferociously at nothing until he recognized Itachi. _

_Last time Itachi was in this neighborhood he was accosted by—"Hey, Hotass, come talk with me a minute—" ah yes, a man just like that one, big, burly, and drunk. Tase him, keep walking. Now he has less time to search for Sasuke. News spreads quick in this neighborhood, quicker still when it's the work of the Gatekeeper, that benighted kyuubi-child who wrecks every setup Itachi masterminds. Faster than a rat running from an exterminator, and brilliant, too, though the day the higher-ups clear Itachi for field work is the day that kid's off the streets for good—and half Konoha's gangs with him, once they crack him—Sasuke, otouto, _where are you?

_The rain clears, but Itachi is no closer, and solemnly regretting the lack of weapons more lethal than a taser. He is desperate and out-of-depth. Maybe Sasuke didn't come here, this time. Maybe he picked a fight he couldn't handle, this time. Maybe one of the monstrosities who called themselves men and pay to watch half-savage children cage-fight paid enough to make Sasuke do more than figh, this time. Maybe this time big brother will be too late. _

_Too late, too late, and he's running now, sweeping the pavement with frantic stares and pounding feet, ragged unborn screams cut off on a bitten tongue, Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke—_

_"They said you'd be here," says a voice, a too-young voice, and Itachi whips around to meet blue eyes, and black hair, and—and—_

_"Otouto" Itachi breathes, reaching for his brother with both arms, dragging him from where he lolls doll-like against a form even smaller than Sasuke's, unconscious and ghost-pale, cut a dozen times over and—_

_"Fought against Haku, that idiot," breathes the other boy, sucking in air, shaking his arms free of Itachi's burden. "Knife fight. Told him he ain't trained for knife-fights, but he's so proud and stupid, you know? Wanted the money—"_

_Itachi is calling 2-1-1, Konoha's emergency line, barking out orders with all his trained proficiency, while within him heart, lungs, and guts melt and swirl together in an agonizing, wrenching fear and his other arms clutches his brother so tight there should be marks but the skin is already too pale and—_

_""S a good think Haku's so soft, you know, or this baka would be so dead," mutters the other boy. "If he's really your brother, you should lock him up or somethin'. You're a cop, you got bars ta put him behind, right? I don't wanna see him ever again… baka…" dimly, Itachi realizes it's tears the kid rubs from his eyes. "Anyway…those knives aren't exactly clean, you know? So tell the docs—" sirens peel, screaming closer and closer. Itachi stares towards them, wills them closer, faster, forces himself into a calm in which he can count breaths and heartbeats, a crude measurement of Sasuke's vitals. When he glances back again, the kid's gone._

_As Sasuke's heartbeat stabilizes, loud and clear through the ambulance monitor with oxygen puffing up his nose every other second, Itachi realizes why he knew that face. The face on the kid who brought him Sasuke. The images they had weren't clear, three-quarters rather than full-face or profile, but he knew those eyes, those scarred cheeks. _

_He'd met the Gatekeeper. _

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plUlq

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"I brought up the line-up with Kakashi," Sasuke offered, watching Naruto stare up at the narrow ceiling of the rink-side tunnel, expression strained and fingers tapping at the wall behind him. They were supposed to be suiting up—well, Sasuke was, anyway, as he was still on the starting lineup. "He said it was up to your parents." There was a slight hesitation before that last word, but Naruto didn't flinch away from it. Unsettled blue eyes tracked slowly down from the ceiling, reluctantly meeting Sasuke's conscientiously blank gaze.

"…Yeah," said the dobe at last. "You know, Bastard… when they find out…"

He trailed off, and Sasuke's gaze sharpened, challenging. "Find out what?"

Naruto hesitated. "Eh…Hina-chan's baby," he finished lamely.

"Idiot. That happened yesterday."

"…Right."

Sasuke waited, but Naruto was in a rare close-lipped mood, and while those happened rarely, they happened thoroughly. He had a pretty good idea what Naruto's concerns were, anyway, and no idea whatsoever of what to do about it. Point out that he wasn't all that different, and his family still accepted him? Except that Sasuke held his own, _crippling_ fear, that one day his father would find out everything, and… and…

And he'd never be acknowledged, accepted, as a son. Never.

"Namikaze's not going to stop you from playing," Sasuke said, suddenly. "He's crazy intense when he's watching you skate. Must be important to him."

Naruto looked up, startled, and Sasuke grimaced in return. He hated this emotional crap.

"I hacked Kush—my mom's email," said Naruto in a rush. "Used it to get Kakashi to keep me off the line-up tonight."

Sasuke stared.

"I made my parents promise not to come tonight, said I needed more time to 'adjust' and crap and didn't want anyone to wonder when Konoha's biggest celebrities show up suddenly at a non-tournament game—"

"Why?" demanded Sasuke, unease spiking in his gut. Naruto never missed a game. Never. Unless…

"Gotta go under for… coupla hours, I'll make it quick," came the confession, and Sasuke nearly hit the idiot for confirming his worst fears. "Just an ID thing—someone's a rat or a plainclothes, covering his ass real well so they want me to come sniff him out—"

"No."

"Aw, come on, Bastard. You gotta cover for me."

"No," hissed Sasuke again, fists clenching. "You told me you could tell them no, these days."

Naruto looked thoroughly miserable. "I can, it's just… I think they're on to me, you know? And I need to scope out how much they know—"

"If you're referring to your new-found connection to your parents coming out, you won't be able to stop it. There's nothing you can do but stay out of reach, which Namikaze will certainly help you do—"

"Fine," snapped Naruto, flushed with sudden, scorching anger that startled Sasuke into an instinctive fighting stance. "Don't cover. Don't do anything, Sasuke."

Sasuke grabbed angrily at the shorter boy's sleeve, roughly cutting off his exit. "Idiot. I'll go with you."

Naruto shrugged him off angrily. "Now who's the idiot? Look, I got about forty seconds to split—Rin's locked in the bathroom with a bunch of baby pigs and Kakashi-baka an' that Obito dude are trying to rescue her, but—"

_Pigs? _ Thought Sasuke, filing that disturbing question for a less urgent moment—"Itachi's on duty tonight," he warned. "And you know you don't have any hours. Sensei'll be after you in 10 minutes or less, and showing with a tail isn't going to help you. Unless you're suicidal." He peered intently at Naruto, half-way sarcastic, half-way concerned that that last bit actually was the case.

"I know," mumbled Naruto, alarming his friend further with the lack of bravado. "But if old nine-tails's got something to tell me about my parents, I'm going to be there to hear it."

Naruto couldn't even keep his gaze long enough for a proper stare-off. "Come on, Sasuke, at least give me the keys," he gritted out angrily, thrusting out a demanding palm. Slowly, reluctantly, Sasuke reached towards his pocket, calculating. The moment Naruto let himself relax in relief, stepping closer to accept the ignition key to their shared motorbike, Sasuke lunged.

Naruto was stronger, but Sasuke was almost always faster. Using weight and surprise to every possible advantage, he wrestled the other teen to the floor, grappling into a fully-committed jiu-jutsu throat lock, straining the muscles in his right arm to keep vital air-ways blocked off long enough to rob Naruto of consciousness while his legs and left arm fought to keep his position of dominance. If Naruto got out of this, he'd send Sasuke straight to the ER, he could feel the waves and panicked rage radiating and a desperate Naruto was a deadly Naruto—

"_NO,_" he gasped, loosing control of the hold—he just needed a few more seconds, he could feel the other boy's hold on consciousness slipping—"NO, Naruto, I'm not enabling this shit—you're not going—HOLD STILL, DAMN YOU!" And just as his center of balance was thrown from under him, and horrible wheezing breaths sounded from Naruto's throat, and hot knowing hands were grabbing at his own throat, arms like still were gripping them both, tearing them apart and pinning him face down just like Itachi did, like all special-op cops were trained to. Dimly Sasuke caught the periphery of Kakashi's most dangerous heavy-lidded gaze and wondered who it was, holding him, if Kakashi was over there, before his gaze spun dizzily over to where Naruto was spitting and fighting and howling like a cornered cat until he too was wrestled into submission and forced against the wall, where he went silent and rigid, visibly shaking, head falling forward to let jagged bangs hide a furious face. For a moment there was nothing but ragged panting to fill the corridor, and then Sasuke strained his head up as far as he could from his humiliating pose on the dirty floor, and got a good look at the adult restraining Naruto.

Namikaze Minato.

"Now, Uchiha," Namikaze addressed him, gaze and voice cold enough to freeze even Sasuke's well-trained gut, "You will explain what led you to attempt suffocating my son."

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vVoVv

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Sakura went to find her teammates, _neither_ of whom were going to make it on to the starting lineup at this point, and found a bawling Hinata instead.

Friends don't leave friends crying alone in darkened, deserted bleachers overlooking shut-down figure skating rinks. Momentarily giving up on her wayward boys, Sakura went to see what she could do.

"Sa-sakura-ch…chan," stuttered Hinata, startled and doing the best to mop up her face while not appearing to do so.

"Hear," offered Sakura bluntly, shoving her hockey jersey-covered arm in Hinata's face. "I'm going to wash it after the match anyways. I have to after every game. You wouldn't believe how bad those boys stink."

Hinata giggled, pushing the arm away in embarrassment. "I—I have a handkerchief," she whispered, sheepishly showing off a dainty bit of cloth crushed into one fist. "It ju-just… stopped soaking up tears…"

Hinata was always crying these days, Sakura reflected. Apparently it was part of being pregnant. Sakura shivered.

"I found another place to live," Hinata whispered. She must truly be desperate for an understanding ear, Sakura reflected, to just begin talking without the usual ritual of cajoling, begging, and occasional blackmailing needed to get the ex-Hyuuga to spill her secrets. But wait—had she said _move out?_

"EH?"

Hinata nodded despondently. "I can move in any time, I just need to… t—t—t—"

"Tell Naruto?" finished Sakura flatly.

Hinata nodded.

"Why." It was a demand, not a question.

Hinata cringed, just a bit. But she sounded determined. "Everything will ch…change, Sakura-chan. Naruto-kun will move in with his… his… p-parents, a-and, once everyth-thing g-gets out, start a comp…pletely new life…"

Sakura's mind spun, tilting around Hinata's very good points.

"And… the last thing he nee…d..ds, will be a pregnant girlfriend," continued Hinata, voice lower than a whisper. Sakura had to strain to understand. "I… I know that world… the press is… horrible, and, and Naruto-kun has a lot of pro-problems to d-deal with, he doesn't need me too—"

Yes, more good points, thought Sakura, catching the edges of Hinata's misery. But—

"But—Hina-chan—he DOES need you!" she burst out, unable to wait any longer for Hinata to force more reasons past her limping tongue. "Can't you see how much happier he's been, since he's had you?! You mean everything to him, he never stops talking about you, he works so hard to take care of you and the baby, and he enjoys it so much, and besides—BESIDES, if he went and knocked you up, he's gotta deal with it, right? Right. I'll kill him if he doesn't." And she looked very capable of doing just that, in that moment.

"He didn't," said Hinata.

"Didn't what?"

"Didn't… didn't… it's not…"

Sakura's stomach began to curled with dread.

"It's not his baby," whimpered Hinata. And started to cry again.

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**A/N: **And things start to get gritty. What do you think?


	8. Chapter 7

**Before you read, please be aware that this chapter contains flashbacks of rape and discussion of rape. The descriptions are not graphic, but this story is rated T for a reason.**

xvVvx

_Hyuuga Hinata knew she was dirty, tainted, possibly even evil. She was a bad, unclean person, and if she didn't go to hell in the afterlife, she was certainly living it now. But she still felt shocked and oddly detached as she watched her hand make its first criminal action: shoplifting. _

_Two pregnancy tests found their way into her shirt. She shifted them around, making sure they would be hidden by her bulky sweater, then stuffed a handful of bills—twice what the items were worth, though that did not ease her conscience—in their spot, stacking a few boxes in front to make it more likely that the money would be found by a store employee rather than a customer. _

_She picked out a pack of tampons to cover her lingering presence in that part of the store, feeling vaguely thrilled by the action, as she'd never been allowed to use a tampon—but that would make no difference now, would it? She grabbed a chocolate bar she was too sick to eat from the rack by the check-out register and paid for both, half-wishing the dour-faced employee ringing up her purchases would see the strange lumping of her sweater and catch her before she could complete her robbery. It didn't matter that she'd left the money. An honest person would be paying right here, at the counter, and while she may have discovered the brashness necessary to openly purchase a box of tampons, she could never, ever imagine laying a pregnancy test on the counter. She was supposed to be Hyuuga Hinata. A virgin. An obedient daughter. A good girl. _

_She had no idea who she was._

_You want this, he'd told her, breath hot and moist against her neck. Such a good girl._ _It's always the good girls who want it the most. You're not going to tell me to stop. You're not going to make a sound. Such a good girl. _

_Sometimes, when she heard his voice in her memories, she wanted to be a dead girl. _

_She didn't want it. She wanted to die. To scream. To run. To fall in front of a train. To push him in front of a train. She did exactly as he said. She didn't move. She didn't fight. Her bottom lip bruised, split and bled, crushed between her teeth, holding back the cries of pain ripping and flailing like a small, wounded wild animal, trapped behind her ribcage, destroying her insides. She remembered the blood trailing slow, so slow down her chin, the bestial fervor it excited when he saw it, the monster fully unleashed from the man. For a moment, she had hoped—calm and clear in the swirling dark—hoped that he would take her life as well as her body. _

_Hyuuga Hinata had always failed. This was the last, the ultimate, the unreparable failure. No amount of money or PR could help or change the outcome. And if the bit of chemically-treated plastic in the thin cardboard box digging uncomfortably into her side told her what she already knew it would, it would not be only her own, failed life she would be responsible for. There would be another, tiny and fragile and unknowing, innocence out of darkness, new, dependent helplessness created from her own weakness, her own helplessness. _

If you are there, _vowed Hinata, _if you are there, I promise—I promise—I don't know what to promise—everything… I promise everything….

_Hyuuga Hinata would not fail._

piTiq

Naruto was shaking uncontrollably, his posture so stiff and stressed in his father's hold that Minato worried he was hurting him. But he didn't dare let go, or even ease his grip. It probably had more to do with survival instinct—his son _had_ just been choked almost to unconsciousness—but the feral ferocity with which Naruto had just fought both him and the kid reported to be his best friend startled and terrified him. Added to the disappointment of being so deliberately lied to, what Minato had just witnessed destroyed the last, over-stretched shreds of hesitant trust Kushina swore were the key to rebuilding a relationship with Naruto.

He'd known, as the years passed, that even if—_when, _he would automatically correct—_when_ they found Naruto, he wouldn't be the sweet, smart, affectionate, rebellious toddler he remembered. Every day without his son was a day of fatherhood lost, another thread in the weaving of a relationship cut.

He'd known Naruto wouldn't remember him, wouldn't even remember himself. His son would be a stranger—a beloved stranger.

But he would be Naruto, even if he knew himself by a different name. The same Naruto they'd covered in kisses from his first minute of life, soothed to sleep through teething-disrupted nights, caught as he fell triumphantly from first steps into proud, loving arms. Naruto who painted the new white couch with blue bubblegum-flavored toothpaste and flooded the living room carpet with the garden hose. Naruto who was brave and bold as he ran his lilting toddler run, trying so hard to keep up with all the bigger kids at the playground, and so tender and vulnerable when he cuddled up on his daddy's lap, half-asleep and utterly content just to be held. Naruto who believed his mother's warm kisses and his father's strong hands could heal all hurts and absolve all wrongs. Half Minato, half Kushina, all Naruto. And that would be enough.

Now Naruto was in his arms—unwillingly, untrustingly, but _there_—and it just… it wasn't enough.

Why couldn't it be enough?

"Go ahead and use my office," offered Kakashi, unlocking a thick wooden door and ushering them all inside—Obito manhandling his unruly relative, Naruto straining in Minato's grip. Sasuke slouched into one of the hard plastic chairs facing the scuffed desk, and Obito let him. Naruto made for the neighboring chair, but Minato didn't budge.

"I'm not letting go," he said quietly, ignoring the pain briefly tightening his chest. Naruto made a sound in his throat, low and angry, but held himself still.

Kakashi looked the scene over grimly, holding Naruto's gaze unflinchingly when the blue eyes shot him a look of bitter defiance. "Take as long as you need, Sensei. I need to go get the team on the ice. Obito, don't break anything. Sasuke, don't let Obito let you break anything. Ja!" With a happy eye-squint Minato knew to have nothing at all to do with his true feelings, Kakashi left them, the swelling noise of the pre-game crowd cutting off abruptly as he pulled the door shut behind him.

"Well," began Minato, after a few minutes of sullen silence, "let's get back to where we left off. Uchiha-kun, why did you attack Naruto?"

The look the kid gave him was priceless. He may be barely fifteen years old, but he had his family's death glare fully mastered. Had the mood been a little lighter, Minato might have chuckled. As it was, it was clear that Sasuke was not going to answer his question, and there was nothing anyone could do to convince him otherwise. Uchiha pride was on the line.

Obito had apparently come to the same conclusion. "You know, I think we should ask Naruto," he suggested cheerfully. "Why was Sasuke attempting your murder, gaki?" When Naruto looked stubbornly away, Obito tsked. "Does this happen often? Hormonal Uchiha can be quite murderous, you know… but usually it's the female ones and it's you're fault for not supplying enough chocolate—say, Sasuke, is it your time of the month? You're gorgeous enough to be a girl—" an exasperated look from Minato cut him off, but it seemed Obito had succeeded in easing the stifling emotional pressure in the room.

"Yeah," scoffed Naruto, lifting his head for the first time. "It's cause the bastard's so in love with me. Can't keep your hands off me, can you, Sasuke?"

To Minato's surprise, Sasuke grunted, a tinge of amusement easing some of the tension in his shoulders. "Don't confuse reality with your dreams, usuratonkachi. I can't be held responsible for your helpless infatuations."

"'Cause _I'm _the gay one," snorted Naruto, and Minato noted how the defensive lines of his posture relaxed, if only fractionally. Interesting. The boys' alliance appeared to be intact, slowly-darkening bruise marring Naruto's neck notwithstanding.

"Either of you can take the initiative," he said tiredly, readjusting his hold on his son to something still restrictive, but less umcomfortable. "We know Naruto hacked into his mom's email, blew off the game, and lied to several different adults. We know you two were fighting in a way that can _not_ be passed off as a casual scuffle, and whether or not these two things are related, we're going to find out what's behind them. However long that takes. My schedule's wide open, boys."

Both teens fell instantly back to stubborn silence.

"We're going to be here all night," mourned Obito, moving to rifle through the untidy desk. "Where does Kakashi keep his coffee? I need, like, three strong cups of the stuff. Preferably with a little Irish cream to ease the pain of your angsty teenage company…and don't think I'm not going to tattle to Aunt Mikoto and/or Itachi, dearest little gangsta-wannabe-cousin-of-mine."

As Sasuke's fists clenched in response to this latest threat, Minato's phone buzzed. Carefully easing one hand free of its grip on his son, hyper-alert for any sign of Naruto taking advantage of this change, he answered and lifted it to his ear.

It was Kushina.

"He's here," he promised. "We're in Kakashi's office. Yeah—2nd floor, behind B rink." She announced her imminent arrival and hung up.

"Well, kids," Minato addressed the two surly teenagers, equably meeting two hostile stares. "I hope you feel like 'fessing up. Sometimes people say I'm scary. I won't give an opinion on that, but I have no qualms whatsoever in promising that Uzumaki Kushina is far, _far_ scarier. So you can do this the hard way, and explain things to me, or the really, _really_ hard way, and explain things to my wife. Smart people choose the former"

Obito looked a little pale. "Do what he says," he urged, sounding alarmingly sincere. "Uh, Sensei, can I leave before she gets here…?"

"Stay," commanded Minato, hiding a smile as Naruto actually cringed.

vlVlv

"What do you mean, it's not Naruto's baby?" whispered Sakura, dimly aware of the bell signaling the end of the warm-up period chiming in the other arena and realizing that she was going to miss the game and be in huge trouble for it, but too shocked to do anything other than stare at Hinata. "He said—he told Sasuke and me that it was his—I smacked him _really_ hard for it and he said he was too stupid to remember a condom and, and—"

"I—I know," sobbed Hinata. "He told everyone it was his. He would've told my family too if I'd l..let-t-t him."

Sakura felt the blood draining from her face. "Hina-chan—he doesn't really think—_you _didn't tell him it's his, did you?"

"No!" cried Hinata. "I w-would never d…do that! Besides, we never—we never—we weren't even to-together! B-but he f-found out and could, could tell I need…ded help, and it w-was h-his idea to say he was the ba-baby's father, and I could l-live with him, and—and—and I wanted it to be t-t-true—"

"Yeah," said Sakura, tugging a hand free of its blocky hockey glove to run sweaty fingers through her hair, then aborting the movement when she remembered she'd already tied it back for the game. "Yeah, of course, I'm sorry, Hina-chan. I shouldn't have guessed that." She reached out tentatively for the other girl, but Hinata was curled into herself so tightly and protectively that what was intended to be some sort of hug ended up as an awkward pat on the back. Not for the first time, Sakura wished she was Ino. Ino had this instinct, this warm confidence, this ability to say the right words in the right way. Sakura felt distant and awkward, though her sympathy was profound.

"…That is just like Naruto, isn't it?" mused Sakura, ending an awkward silence. "To just decide to be a dad to somebody else's baby. His heart's freaking huge like that. And you know… before he told me that he screwed up and got you pregnant, I wasn't even sure he knew what sex was." Hinata sniffled and wiped her eyes, laughing a tiny breath of a laugh, and Sakura reveled in a quick rush of relief. Not the completely wrong thing to say then. The relief flickered out just as quickly as it came, however, as a horrifying thought pulled itself together in her analytical mind, and as the bits of evidence flew into place with their usual speed, Sakura looked at her friend with dread.

"Hinata… the father… if it wasn't…"

Hinata flinched violently. The darkness of the empty figure skating rink seemed to expand somehow, the shadows twisting into something more menacing.

Sakura could hardly find her voice. "You were raped."

"It—it was my fault," whispered Hinata.

Sakura's voice was flat and challenging. "You wanted to have sex with whoever got you pregnant?"

"No—_no—_but I…I didn't fight," choked Hinata, barely coherent. "Didn't scream—didn't—didn't say no, or _stop, _or—"

Sakura lurched in her seat, and Hinata recoiled, but while rage was boiling through her, the girl before her was last person Sakura wanted to suffer from it. "No, Hinata," said Sakura, voice thick with passion, "you were raped. It doesn't change because you didn't scream."

Hinata lifted her head, stared at her. Sakura's anger blazed fiercer at the self-loathing she saw there.

"Hinata-chan… of _course _you didn't scream. Of course you didn't say no. How could you? You've been conditioned your whole damn life to submit to male authority, haven't you? To be a proper lady, meek and _submissive_ and _silent,_ to do as your told? You were _attacked._ By a _predator. _You were attacked,and your brain went into survival mode—shut down, reverted to your most basic behaviors—_you were raped. _Blame the monster who did it, blame our _stupid,_ _misogynistic _society, blame your emotionally abusive family, but don't you _dare—_Hinata, look at me—don't you DARE blame yourself. You hear me?!" Sakura was standing, fists clenched, righteous anger billowing about her like a holy aura. Hinata just stared, face white, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. Completely unprepared for Sakura's proclamation.

"Oh, Hinata-chan," breathed Sakura, and melted from holy anger into a desperate hug. Later, she would berate herself for being so physically aggressive with a rape victim, but at the time Hinata didn't seem to mind. She let Sakura cling to her, passionate and protective, and gazed, amazed, at the tears soaking her shoulder, her sleeve—somebody else's tears, shed for her. Hinata's tears.

doOob

Naruto wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere with thick walls, fluffy blankets and plenty of ramen and not come out for a long, long time. Or at least until his…his father stopped looking at him with that not-quite-hidden anguished, weary, _heartbroken_ look, and Sasuke stopped shooting him those betrayed-slash-concerned glares like accusations, and that Obito dude stopped bracing for his mom's, Kushina's, arrival like it was doomsday, and—and if Namikaze…Dad…would just _let him go…._

_You betrayed me first! _He bellowed in his head, but guilt and doubt clogged his throat and nothing came out of his mouth. The memories were fuzzy and twisted with years of kyuubi's words, leaving Naruto so completely uncertain that he didn't know whom to trust anymore—_trust yourself, _he had decided, years and years ago. _Believe in yourself. _'Cause if he didn't, no one would. But—but—had he been wrong the first time, or the rest of the time? It was why he'd decided to go out there tonight, disappear into the underworld he'd grown up in: to try to fit this new, dazzling, overwhelming puzzle piece into the mysteries of his own existence and identity.

_I don't know who I am._

The adrenaline was still pounding through him, his neck throbbing from Sasuke's attack and the shivering that always accompanied panic or strong emotion shaking him from head to foot. If Namikaze let go of him now, he wasn't even sure he could stand.

He wasn't really angry at Sasuke though. He knew why he'd stopped him—he would have done the same—had done the same, more than once, when their positions were reversed.

They were the same.

But Sasuke had always had a family. Had always known where he belonged. It was kind of… the ruins of a family, broken into pieces and hollowed out and raw around the edges, but the bonds were still there.

"Why did you walk away?" The words burst from his mouth on their own, ragged, tormented, and Naruto gulped, wishing them back immediately. But from the way everyone stilled and stared, they'd heard him loud and clear. Even Sasuke looked startled, confused.

"…What do you mean, Naruto?" asked Namikaze, shifting his hold on Naruto without breaking contact, turning him until intense, focused blue eyes were staring intently into his.

"Why—" Naruto was appalled to find tears choking his voice, and the trembling was getting worse, but he couldn't stop— "—Why'd you _walk away? _Dad? _Why?_"

Namikaze's face was white. "Walk away?" he asked slowly, voice very low. "When did I ever walk away from you, Naruto?"

"At the game!" yelled Naruto, gripping his father's wrists as the man held onto Naruto's upper arms, not sure if he wanted to throw the hands off and stagger away—or hold on tighter than he had to anything in his life. Sasuke stood from his chair, hands open. Naruto took courage from this and forged on, though the room seemed to be spinning and his eyes couldn't stay still, tracking and analyzing everything in the small, untidy office the way he tracked the crowd when he was in the cage. "There was—the game—that game—you were raising money to help lost children, in honor of your son—"

"You," said Namikaze, his grip tightening painfully. "You're my son, Naruto."

"No—_no—_that's why I was there, 'cause…cause that's what I thought, that it was me, that you were looking for me! And I wouldn't forget—he tried so hard to make me forget, but I _wouldn't—_"

It was getting hard to breathe.

"So I—I would always try to run away, to find you, you know? I couldn't remember my mother." His cheeks burned with shame, admitting this. "I mean—I _did_ remember—her voice—her smell—but, but I couldn't remember her _face_." He couldn't see at all, now, just misty colors swimming in the blur that should have been sensei's office, and he let go of the wrists he'd been holding, crushing the heels of his hands over hot, wet eyes. His hands were shaking. "So he—he said if I was so sure, he would take me to see you, if I was really, really good. And… and it took so many days of being good, but… but we went. And you were there."

"Naruto," said his father, sounding like he'd been punched in the gut, and all the breath was knocked out of him.

"I screamed for you," gasped Naruto, fingers tangling in his hair, palms covering his eyes. "I yelled and yelled. You were _right there._ I banged on the glass so hard I thought it would break. I wanted it to."

"How… how could I not see you?"

"You _could. _You could see me. You were looking right at me."

"No, NO, Naruto. If I had seen you—"

"YOU SAW ME!" screamed Naruto, and knocked the hands away, staring through streaming eyes. "You saw—you saw what I'd become—you saw—saw…" one finger came up, gouged the scars on his cheeks.

Kyuubi's mark.

Obito was standing. Sasuke was standing. Namikaze was staring down at him, but Naruto couldn't look at him long enough to read his expression. There was not enough oxygen in the air. His heart and lungs were pumping, heaving, but it wasn't helping. His legs stopped working.

_Can't—can't breathe—_

"Naruto." It was Sasuke, voice tense, commanding, Sasuke's arms supporting him, directing him, trying to get him to sit down or something. "Calm down—"

But Naruto pushed away—blind, lost, wild—reached for his father.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, choking and crying and not sure if the words made it past his wheezing breaths. It was getting hard to see. "I'm sorry—I'm sorry—don't—don't—"

Then—black.

nuTun

"Kaka-sensei—I'm really sorry—"

"No one on our team is functioning today, Sakura. Here, you're forgiven. "

"…Are we losing?"

"To Takigakure. Yes."

A Takigakure player whizzed past Konohamaru and slid the puck into Konoha's goal.

"Shit. Er, shoot. Sorry Sensei."

"Wanna get out there?"

"You mean—but I missed warm-ups, and came in late and—"

"I've no idea what you're talking about, Sakura. You've always been an exemplary team member."

"Uh… sure, Kaka-sensei. Switch me in."

If there was one thing Sakura felt ready to do, it was to make every last male on the face of the planet—or just those in Takigakure jerseys dreaming of owning her home ice, they'd do in a pinch—realize exactly how much respect every female deserved.

A lot could be accomplished towards this goal by grinding every last chauvinist snout into the boards, Sakura decided.

"Go get 'em, Sixteen," murmured Kakashi, whistling a perspiring Shino off the ice. A shiver went down his spine as he caught the look in Sakura's eyes as she clambered over the boards. There was pure murder promised in the green eyes under that visor.

Hatake Kakashi had no idea what to think of his team these days.

_At least one thing hasn't changed,_ he mused watching Sakura send a burly Takigakure defender flying into his own goalie before neatly dropping the puck into the undefended net.

_They all know how to play hockey._

poUoq

_It's not possible, _Minato told himself, pacing restlessly from the door, to the window, to the door, a tiny distance in Kakashi's cramped office. _Even with the dark hair, I would have recognized him. And even if I somehow didn't recognize him, I would not have walked away from a screaming child. I never have. _

_Think. _There was something he was missing, some detail he wasn't analyzing right. There had to be an explanation. _A fake memory planted by suggestion? There is this mysterious "he" Naruto mentions. _

Naruto was still out cold, laid carefully on the thinly-carpeted floor, Sasuke hovering and Obito whispering instructions given to him over the phone by Senju Tsunade. Naruto's clothing had been loosened, his feet propped up, his breathing and heart rate monitored. Minato had been the one to dial Tsunade, his first decisive action in the initial contact, but when she answered he found himself unable to speak and handed the phone over to Obito. Now the best thing he could do was stay out of the way.

_You saw me! At the game._

What game? There had been so many games. Golf? Hockey? Football?

_You were raising money to help lost children._

He did a lot of that kind of event. Anything he could think of to keep Naruto's pictures circulating, to keep the public aware and looking.

_I wouldn't forget. Why—why'd you walk away?_

He hadn't. He _hadn't._

"This happened once before," said Sasuke, addressing Obito in a hushed voice. "He—he started hyperventilating—and then he just collapsed. Itachi said it sounded like a panic attack."

_I screamed for you! _

"He's breathing steadily now. I think he'll be fine after a good rest," Obito reassured.

"_I banged on the glass so hard I thought it would break. I yelled and yelled—"_

"Dobe," whispered Sasuke. It sounded less like an insult and more like an endearment.

"_You saw me—YOU SAW ME!_"

He would remember those eyes anywhere. He would have had a strong reaction to any child marked with Naruto's scars—but not the kind of reaction Naruto seemed to expect.

_Kyuubi. But it's not just kyuubi. I'm sure of it—_

_YOU SAW ME!_

Naruto coughed, rolled to the side, curled into fetal position. 

"Wake up, dobe."

_Why—why'd you walk away? _

_At the game. I couldn't remember her face._

_You saw me! _

_He tried so hard to make me forget. _

_I screamed for you! I banged on the glass so hard I thought it would break. I hoped it would._

_It took so many days of being good. _

His son's words swirled in his head, recalled exactly, but he was missing something. The answer was there—he could sense it—

_I hoped it would. _

The glass.

_I thought it would break._

_I banged on the glass._

_At the game. At the game._

An image rose in Minato's eidetic memory, ice—packed bleachers—sweeping spotlights—screaming fans—reflective glass—

_You were looking right at me._

"I remember," breathed Minato.

"Dad," groaned Naruto. "Don't leave—Dad—"

"You'll come with me," promised Minato. "Obito—call Kushina—"

"Don't go—Dad—" whimpered Naruto. He sounded delirious.

"—Ask her to bring the car over the back doors instead of coming in here, we'll meet her there—Sasuke, help me lift him—"

"Don't wanna fight," muttered Naruto.

"We're not at the ring," Sasuke told him, darting an anxious sideways glance at Minato. With Naruto's arms slung over their respective shoulders, they hauled him to his feet.

"Hate that bastard," mumbled Naruto.

"Where are we going?" wondered Obito, propping the door open for them, the message to Kushina already confirmed.

Minato met his gaze squarely, real hope rising him for the first time in twelve long, long years. "The Capital," he said, keeping a careful eye on Naruto as he stumbled along between them. "Millenium Stadium. Sasuke, you can let Obito take your place and head back to the rink. Thank you."

The younger Uchiha didn't budge, fingers white-knuckled as he gripped his best friend's sleeve.

"You're taking Naruto to the capital? Why?"

They were at the door; Minato could see Kushina's headlights sweeping up to greet them.

The three of them got Naruto through the door and into the car without too much trouble; he seemed exhausted and confused, but Obito vouched that Tsunade had said to expect as much for the first few minutes after his return to consciousness. Once settled in the back seat, he slipped immediately into a soundless sleep.

"They'll bring him back, Sasuke," Obito promised his cousin, looking at the hunched form beside him with heartfelt pity.

Sasuke wasn't mollified. "What's at Millenium Stadium?"

"Answers," said Minato, and faced Kushina.

"Okay, Minato," she whispered, and guided the car onto the road.

.

.

.

.

**A/N: Yay, answers! Do tell me: are things developing in an engaging way? Sometimes I think I'm building suspense but I'm really just building confusion. Could you please let me know how I'm doing? Thank you!**

**My students are all working on Model UN instead of attending regular classes this week, so I've had much more writing time than will ever be the norm. Unfortunately, the next update will not come so quickly (and another one of my stories, **_**Brother,**_** takes priority). But thank you so much for reading :)**


	9. Chapter 8

Sasuke watched the tail lights marking Naruto's distance from him fade around the turn at the end of the parking lot and decided not to acknowledge the way the darkness pressed that much heavier into every part of him.

They'll bring him back, Obito promised. He'd barely been aware of the man's existence until two days ago, but apparently they were still related. Sasuke twitched out from under the man's comforting arm and put some space between them, taking refuge in the shadows.

There'd always been things he didn't know about Naruto. Everyone thought the idiot told everyone everything—Naruto was, after all, always, _always _talking—and he made such a show with those oh-so-expressive eyes and brow and mouth of his that the people he interacted with believed they knew exactly how the hyperactive knucklehead felt, all the time.

Sasuke wasn't fooled. Unless he wanted to, Naruto expressed less of what was going on behind that animated mask of his than anyone Sasuke knew. Including himself.

_You shouldn't be here, _were the first words Naruto ever said to him, and Sasuke hadn't believed him.

He should have. He really should have—should have listened to the short kid with the scarred face and a knife in each hand. Sasuke didn't believe anyone at that part of his life: not himself, not his family, not his teachers, certainly not another lost boy acting tough in the scummiest arteries feeding Konoha's underbelly.

The difference between himself and Naruto, back then, was that Naruto wasn't acting. Not like Sasuke. While Sasuke walked himself into every kind of fatally stupid situation a half-cracked mess of thirteen-year-old could get himself into, Naruto showed up like a curse (or a lucky charm) and pulled him out—over and over and over again. Each time Sasuke hated the idiot more for it.

Until he noticed that Naruto was clinging to him. Was trying to be like him. That as thoroughly and royally screwed up as Sasuke may be, he was the closest thing to a "normal" kid Naruto had ever seen; the closest thing to "friend" Naruto had ever known.

So when Sasuke got out of the hospital that last time, with Itachi pacing his every footstep and Mother keeping all his shirts damp with her tears, he finally acknowledged the extra shadow radiating worry and curiosity that showed up around the edges of his spaces from time to time, and suggested that they try out a new game. Maybe without knives this time. Maybe something like a hockey stick would do instead. Maybe something that was just about kids and speed and challenge and fun without the (pretty much inevitable) death part.

Naruto was older than him (or was he? Hadn't the Namikaze baby been younger? Another thing to check—) but Sasuke found himself falling into roles he pretended not to recognize as Itachi's: big brother, advisor, protector. He was the one to teach Naruto about grade school and sneakers and comic books; the first to introduce tomato sandwiches and mowing lawns and drenching hot-day sprinkler fights. He'd let Naruto into his world inch-by-inch until the gravity of its epicenter depended on his presence, and that was dangerous.

There'd always been things he didn't know about Naruto. It never mattered—not enough to strain what was between them, not enough to make Naruto hide away behind face-splitting grins and squinted eyes. Naruto can take care of himself, Sasuke told himself. In his ignorance, he forgot that there could be a someone with greater claim to Naruto's brightness than he.

_If you fail to return him, _he promised the empty dark where the car had long since disappeared, _if you keep him when he doesn't want to be kept, he'll fight. You will underestimate him, because no one is ever prepared for the way that idiot owns it, and I'll slip through the cracks and snatch him back. _

_If he was yours, he's not anymore._

_...unless he wants to be._

Hunched under the weight of the dark, Sasuke turned quickly and shoved his way back through the heavy glass door and down narrow hallways until the crowds were loud enough and the artificial lights bright enough that he could pretend not to see his own thoughts.

xXmXx

Slumped sideways across the back seat of Kushina's rental car, Naruto dreamed. Unable to break through his will during waking hours, Naruto's memories lurked until unconsciousness claimed him, gathering vivid potency.

It began with pain and cold marble.

"_Now," came the command, voice soft, promising further punishment should any word spoken be less than perfectly heeded, "Go do as you're told and nothing else. If I see you again looking like this I'll smack you till there's nothing left of your disobedient backside. Yugito! Get him out of here and get the job done."_

_Choking on the last of the tears he had so desperately tried to hold back, Naruto jerked out of the man's loosened grasp and tried to swiftly yank his trousers back up, another yelp escaping as the material scraped over swollen flesh. Defiance and humiliation burned through him hotter even than the pain from the belt-whipping and it was hard to get the button of his trousers through the buttonhole with the way his fingers kept clenching into fists. Tears blurred his eyes, but they didn't blind him to the booted feet striding toward him or the hand reaching to grab him and he knew better than to avoid but still his feet were backing him toward the wall, anger and fear swirling his thoughts into _get-away-get-away-get-away _and a bigger, much scarier hand clamped down over the nape of his neck and lifted and shook and his stomach heaved and he wondered how much worse things could possibly get even if he just puked right here right now—_

"_Five more," came the grim sentence, and the boy's pants were yanked down to make place for lashing leather and he couldn't even try to stop the screams, this time. _

_When it was over, and he was stood back up on trembling legs, his eyes had dried up. He could feel the snot running steadily over his upper lip but his voice was gone and he could see better without the tears blurring his vision so he raised his head and stared at the man who hit him, and his secret rolled round and round his head even though the words felt kind of hollow against the heat of hurt and shame. When Yugito reached for him again, he stayed perfectly still, like a plush toy animal with nothing but cotton inside. No pain, no hate, just fluffy, white, stupid cotton..._

"_You see, Naruto?" rumbled the Fox, wrapping the belt slowly around one hand. "There is always a choice, and a consequence. You're a big boy, six years old. Old enough to choose what, exactly, you want to avoid." Yugito's other hand curled around him, and she urged him towards the door as the man's voice rumbled one last command:"Bring him back when he's presentable; make sure he gets a hot dinner."_

_Naruto's sneakers squeaked as they shuffled over marble tiles, the hot hands gripping his shoulders pushing him through each awful step. "Step it up," urged Yugito. "Now that you've calmed down, we can get this over with quickly, and then you can have some dinner, got it?"_

_They were at the doorway. Naruto tried to remember if he had ever hurt this much. He was pretty sure he had, but he always forgot how truly horrible some things were the moment he stopped feeling them. It was stupid and good at the same time, being able to forget. _

"_No." he didn't know he'd said it until the whisper reached his own ears, and his whole body twinged fiercely in warning. Yugito stilled, let him go, stepped back. Slowly, so slowly, Naruto turned to face the Fox, fingers curling into fists, determination sparking a tiny, flickering flame in his belly. His eyes rolled up slowly, fear creeping down each limb until it tingled in his palms and across the soles of both feet, twisting everything inside him—but he kept his eyes moving up, up, up until they stared straight into the raw challenge in the gaze aimed sharply down at him.  
_

_There was a long, breathless pause, in which the thought of puking came back full force._

_"Are you saying no to me, Naruto? Is that the choice you want to make?"_

_He almost stopped, right there. Almost chose the smart thing. Almost cried and said he was sorry, he didn't mean to, he wouldn't do it again. But the promise was still rattling around in his mind, over and over and over. _

"_I don't want black hair." He dropped his gaze to the floor, unable to look any longer at the red-grey hair and cold grey eyes watching him, or the belt coiled like a nightmare-snake in strong hands. But his tongue kept making the words and his lungs kept pushing them out. "My dad's coming to find me," he breathed, and as the secret rushed out into the room he felt his belief in those simple words grow—it was pounding in his heart, harder truer faster. "My dad's coming to find me. He's gonna find me. I don't want black hair. I want him to recognize me right away. He's coming to find me—he's coming to find me—he's comi—"_

_And then he couldn't do anything but gasp and scream and try to squeeze some breath in-between the rain of overwhelming force and pain lashing over every part of him—arms, legs, wrists, neck, calves, palms. He collapsed onto cold stone and tried to curl into the smallest ball possible, but strong hands just pulled him up and shook him out again and the belt never stopped finding the spots that hurt the most. There was a breath where everything stopped and through the ringing in his ears and the trembling of each aching limb he knew what was going to happen next. He couldn't stop the urge to struggle against the hands lifting and repositioning him and baring his bruised buttocks again, but his arms and legs were so tiny, so weak with pain, that it made no difference._

The order came with the sure snarl of a dog with its jaw clenched around the throat of its prey. "Start counting." 

"_One," choked Naruto. _Daddy will come. Daddy will come. Daddy please...

"_I didn't hear you." The belt struck. Naruto stuffed a fist in his mouth and bit back the scream curling helpless in his throat. _I can do this. Daddy will come. _The fist left his mouth ringed with small red tooth-marks; oxygen and courage rushed in. _

_The belt hit again._

"_One," counted Naruto again, loud enough and clear enough that there was a grunt of acknowledgement before the next strike. _

"_Two..."_

_Thwap._

"_nnnghh... THREE..."_

_Thwap._

"_F-four—" _

"Naruto."

There were hands on him and the belt and it hurt and his face was pressing into something hot and kind of damp and—"_Five_," he gasped—

"Hey—it's okay—Naruto—"

Naruto flinched violently and the hand disappeared.

He was shaking.

He was in a car. _Going where? _

His hands were big. _I can fight back now, you damn old Fox. Just try—_

His hair was black.

"...Naruto? Are you awake? Look at me—Naruto—"

He had to move quickly, unexpectedly, but between the automatic tightening of the seatbelt he didn't know he was wearing and the trembling of his muscles, each action was slower than it should be. Still, he had one hand pressing the catch to release the belt buckle and the other slipping the switchblade from his waistband in the same breath it took him to count the people (two adults one-driving-one-guarding) in the car and recognize that they were going too fast to risk trying the door and jumping for it immediately. It was as he was getting his feet under him, crouching fight-ready in the cramped backseat space, that he caught a startling glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror: bloodshot blue eyes, mussed-up black hair, red patterned imprint of the material his cheek has been pressed against marring half his face.

His not-six-anymore face.

"We better pull over—Kushina," came that same urgent voice, and with a shudder Naruto came fully awake.

His father was staring worriedly at him. His mom was driving, switching between checking the side-mirrors as she switched lanes and the rear-view mirror as she checked Naruto. Too-quick seconds beat by as the car swooped to a stop on the shoulder of the road, eerie yellow streetlamp-glow flooding the windows, and Naruto shrank back against the upholstered seat-back, lifting an arm to hide his face, breathing heavily.

The engine cut.

'Naruto?" it was Kushina this time. _I like your voice,_ thought Naruto, and wanted to hit himself for the stupidity of it.

_Breathe in—two, three, four... Breathe out—two, three, four..., In— out—_

"I'm okay," he managed, breath mostly under control. Slowly, unwillingly, he forced the arm shielding his face to fall. _What happened to me? Don't think I was in a fight, but my body's all __messed up__—__wha__—__there was __some__thing with __Sasuke—__Sasuke __was gonna__knock me out__—__and then—__and then—_

"Do you feel sick? Naruto? Need some fresh air?" His father was speaking.

_Yes. _"No." _In, out. __In.__ At least I didn't pull the knife on them. __Out.__ I can't lose control like this. _His fingers still trembled as he tucked the blade back into his waistband and slipped his cellphone out of his pocket to replace it, hoping the way Namikaze's eyes tracked the movement was his paranoid imagination.

"We can do this another time," said Namikaze, nearly concealing the intense emotional strain tugging his voice into sharp edges. Nearly. "Let's forget Millennium Stadium and call it a night. You need some rest. Let's find a hotel..."

Naruto couldn't recall why they were driving to Millennium Stadium, but it was urgent. "No—really—I'm fine. And I was just sleeping. No more sleeping." If he blinked a little too rapidly, swiped a hand across one cheek, surely they wouldn't notice. "I'm... gonna call a friend. On the road again! Let's go!" he urged cheerily, and grinned, though by the taught silence that followed, no one was buying into the mood shift. Kushina's hand hovered over the ignition key, some sort of silent conversation flickering between her and Minato. When she turned to pin her backseat passenger with her cool grey gaze, Naruto squirmed uncomfortably, fighting to keep his phony smile steady.

"You will tell us what 'five' means when we talk about these things," she promised grimly, and, supremely unfazed by the sudden tightening of Naruto's jawline or the defiance flashing in his eyes, faced forward and floored the gas pedal.

Minato turned to the windshield with a quiet sigh as the little sedan swerved into the flow of traffic, accelerated well past the speed limit, and dangerously cut off another driver before leaving the other cars in the dust.

Naruto gulped and re-fastened his seatbelt.

xvYvx

The hiss and pop of a thousand lights flickering to life cut the silence echoing round the empty cavern of Millennium Stadium; Minato felt each reverberation trickle down his spine as drops of ice water. His fingers itched to reach and hold his son (a wrist, a shoulder, the hem of his hoodie; anything to keep him tangible) so he kept his hands in his jacket pockets, where they clenched into painful fists. If he was right—and when it came to issues of fact, detail or memory, he always was—this would be the place where a second chance could finally, _finally_ begin.

"It was nine years ago," he said. "Closer to eight and a half, to be more precise. A fundraiser anniversary rematch of the World Cup game between Konoha and Iwa. I was listed as a guest player and would have opened the game as part of the starting lineup, but I left before it even started."

Naruto twitched and hunched further into his hoodie, muscles visibly taut through the thick folds of cloth. He seemed hesitant, or wary, and offered no encouragement for Minato to continue his story, but he kept close as they trecked a path through the bleachers. A door slammed and both heads snapped round to view the source of the sound; apparently satisfied with the lighting, Kushina swung out of the control booth and started briskly toward them. Minato paused to watch her, the sensation of cold fingers crawling up his spine intensifying.

"...I'd been receiving anonymous texts for twenty-four hours," Minato continued, swallowing against the potent grip of mixed anxiety and anticipation swelling a painful lump in this throat. "In patterned intervals of minutes. Threats. Made me really jumpy."

Naruto's eyes cut sideways to watch him.

"Things like, 'I keep what is mine,' and warnings to stop looking for you—that's how I interpreted them, anyway." Minato swallowed thickly. He had tried to stay calm, to collect this potential source of information and allow it to be analyzed from every angle. But what he thought he understood was terrifying in the way waking from a nightmare, knowing it is a nightmare, and still being unable to shake the unreasoning, mind-devouring fear from paralyzed limbs is terrifying. The pattern of minutes between each message could have meant so many things—it went seven, ten, ten, ten, seven, ten, ten, ten, seven...

Seven, ten: July tenth. Kushina's birthday. Ten, ten: October tenth. Naruto's birthday.

"Who was the 'I'?" Naruto's voice was startlingly quiet and rough around the edges and nearly swallowed in the hugeness of the room. "From the text messages. Who was 'I'?"

"...We were unable to confirm who wrote the messages," hedged Minato, watching Naruto as closely as Naruto was watching him. "But the number was one that had belonged to Kushina's deceased grandfather. His land-line number—that was before mobile phones, so coincidence was a possibility."

Naruto just looked confused. "My mom's... grandfather? Like my great-grandfather?"

Minato nodded. "He'd been dead for more than a decade. At least we believed he was. Now..." his eyes traced the scars etched cruelly across his's son's smooth skin. "...Now I'm not so sure."

"You still haven't explained how we're going to find answers here," interrupted a new voice, and both men jerked guiltily towards Kushina, who was striding towards them with a scowl. "Or which answers we're looking for. Or why you needed _all_ the lights on. Do you have any idea how big the electricity bill for this place is? I don't, because when a number has that many zeros I make Obito handle it. Think of global warming!"

Minato couldn't help it; he smiled at her. She never was one for dramatic warm-ups to a conflict or revelation, and offered a welcome counterpoint to the mounting tension. "Right," he said. "I'll cut right to it. We need to take a look in the VIP box."

"Any particular VIP box?" she queried, pushing past them and taking the lead with a rather snappy pace. "Or is the nearest one fine?"

"Any of them will be fine," Minato replied. He could remember exactly which of the four he had stared at that day, but this wasn't about the exactness of his recall. The jingle of a great many keys mingled with their footsteps as Kushina searched through the key-ring she'd taken charge of, finding the appropriate key for the VIP box nearest them. By the time he and Naruto caught up with her, she had the door open and was giving herself a tour of the place. It was a small, expensively furnished room balanced at the edge of the second-floor balcony, floor-to-ceiling glass offering a million-yen view of shining ice reflecting several thousand lights.

For a moment the three stood in silence, Naruto and Minato shuffling in awkwardly while Kushina milled about, encountered a remote and started using it to try to turn the array of TV screens on. In seconds Naruto was reflecting her fidgeting in his own restless limbs.

"What now?"

"Just wondering if any of this seems... at all familiar, at all like what you remember from—from what you told me tonight," began Minato, and Kushina looked up sharply. "If you and I are remembering the same thing, you would have been in a room like this one when I—when you—when you saw me."

"I don't remember—" began Naruto, but then stopped, staring fixedly at the glass. Under no conscious command, his feet moved forward, pulling him by small, hesitant steps until he was pressed against the glass wall, breath fogging the clear surface.

"If you had been standing in front of the glass—the perspective would have been a little different, because you would have been so—so small—" the words cracked, and Minato stopped to breathe. "Just—just wait," he managed, and nearly ran for the door. He took the stairs to the lower level three and a four at a time, vaulting down into the tunnel leading from changing rooms to the rink and over the boards onto the ice with enough speed to send him skidding over the surface on the tractionless soles of his expensive street shoes, nothing but innate balance and long experience keeping him standing.

The shapes of the arena whirled around him in a double vision: one the empty greys and blues of abandoned bleachers ringing round blinding whites of untouched ice and silence; the other a remembered mess of roaring crowds and faces unduludating with waving flags and pumping fists. There had been music blaring and his name reverberating through the loudspeaker as he sailed to center ice.

He had been a mess of nerves, the rabid beast of consuming fear barely suppressed in the hollows of his gut. Instinct, fueled by the sinister texts and what he read between their lines, had made him desperate and unreasonable for hours before arriving at the arena, and his need to protect Kushina had backfired spectacularly, leading to their worst fight to date. Had the text messages not directed him to this game—and any hope of unraveling the plot behind them—he never would have set foot in Millenium Stadium.

Now he swirled to a stop in on empty ice, turning slowly to stare at his own reflection.

iuUui

_Was it here? I remember the glass—and a dark room—but—but if it was here, and he remembers, why—why— _Naruto's breath fogged the glass, and a stepped away, tugging nervously at his bangs. Kushina came to stand beside him.

"You were here, Naruto? When?" her voice was soft and urgent.

"...Maybe," said Naruto, glancing at her and looking just as quickly away. "I was eight..."

Kushina sucked in air sharply, and bit her lip. Through the window, Minato could be seen, clearing the boards with ease and sliding, uncontrolled, over the ice.

"I could see him," whispered Naruto, "and I tried to make him look at me, there were lots of people so I wasn't sure he would hear me but he did—and he came sprinting closer and was staring right at me—"

Down on the rink, Minato turned slowly, looked up at them. Naruto barely registered the warmth and wetness sliding down his cheeks.

"I was so happy." The hand gripping his hair pulled painfully, and Naruto withdrew it quickly, turning away from the glass the memory of joy and relief swelling so painfully he still couldn't breathe around it.

Kushina rested a small, warm, impossibly gentle palm on his arm. "Did you try to get to him? Did someone stop you?"

"No," said Naruto, and his breath shuddered. "He saw me and his face changed... just like they said it would. They were right."

"Right about what, Naruto?"

"That if he saw me with—with my scars—" his fists clenched, he made them open; allowed his eyes to press closed. "-Even if he was my dad, he wouldn't want me. No one would."

The palm on his arm became a grip, but it didn't hurt, and every finger was warm. "That's what they told you?"

"Everytime I insisted that Namikaze Minato was my father." He opened his eyes, faced his mother full-on. "They were right."

Kushina looked back at him steadily, grey eyes wide and clear and every line of her face telling some story: anger, pride, compassion, empathy. Sorrow.

"He didn't see you," she said.

Naruto jerked his head sideways, looking pointedly at where Minato was still watching them, as if he could read every word through the glass.

"It's one-way glass, Naruto," she said softly. "Window on one side, mirror on the other. All he can see is his own reflection."

Unbelieving, Naruto stared at her, then took long fast steps out of the room and down the aisle to where regular bleachers lined up at the edge of the balcony. The front of the VIP boxes wasn't clearly visible—the reflective quality could be due to the angle—so he gripped the railing and leaned out over the ice, twisting his head to the side so he could measure the glass from the other side.

It was a mirror. A mirror showing nothing but bleachers and wall and ice and empty space made for too many people.

A hand fisted in the back of his jacket and he leaned back, pulling away instinctively.

"It wasn't your face that he saw that day, Naruto," said Kushina, allowing him to step away, dropping the hand that had held him. Minato was still standing on the ice, alone, waiting. "It was mine."

.

vvHvv

.

"It was Kyuubi."

Sasuke stilled, the hand holding his phone seizing, straining to hear over the sound of rushing water Naruto was using to mask their conversation. "What do you mean?"

"It wasn't—wasn't Dad's fault, that he couldn't find me," gasped Naruto, and Sasuke knew that the boy must be pacing, aching, lost. "It was that effing Fox. He made me think—made us both think—Dad thought he'd killed Mom—"

"Dobe. Sentences. Use complete sentences."

Naruto slowed down a bit at the familiar rebuke. "Ahgh. Okay. You know my scars."

Sasuke didn't say anything. Of course he knew those scars.

"So that's what Kyuubi used to do to the people he killed. You know."

Sasuke did know. Naruto was the only person to have ever been found alive with marks like that. The only one whose wounds had time to turn to scars. They were the signature of a serial murderer.

"He made me think that Dad would see them like everyone else. You know, be scared and shit. Hate me. Run away from me."

"Hn," agreed Sasuke. Very few people could look at Naruto without recalling gruesome images of mutilated corpses.

"Then he set Dad up."

Naruto was using the word 'Dad' very freely, Sasuke noted.

"Sent him text messages. Threatened Mom. Made him desperate to keep her from—from disappearing. Like me."

Sasuke waited.

"Then he let me see him, but he couldn't see me—all he could see was mom—a reflection of a picture or a projection or something—Mom—with scars like—like mine—"

"How could he not see you?"

"That kind of glass in movies, like a mirror on one side, you know? And Dad totally freaked, and that's when he ran—I thought it was because of me—"

_It wasn't because of you, dobe. I could have told you that._ But Sasuke said nothing.

"-he just had to get to Mom, and she was fine, it was all a set up. But I bought it—for all these years, I thought... I thought..."

"Naruto. Are you crying?"

Pause. Sniffles. "Of course not. Bastard."

"Good."

More not-very-muffled-sniffling.

"You believe everything they say?"

"Yeah. I believe it."

Of all the things Sasuke would blithely deny, Naruto's uncanny ability to detect truth was not one of them. "I see."

"Right?" asked Naruto.

"Hn. Are you staying there tonight?"

"Um... yeah... I'm not really sure, Dad's calling for takeout right now... Thai food, he said..."

Sasuke groaned and it turned into a yawn. "Why'd you call me at 2:00 am, idiot."

"Yah, whatever, you weren't sleeping."

He hadn't been.

"Hey, Sasuke...thank you." The words were far too quiet for ones spoken by Naruto, even over the phone.

"Dobe."

"Yeah?"

"Come back."

"Of course I'll come back, dumbass. It's just a long drive and it's already been a long night, plus it's not my car, y'know? I need to check on Hina-chan. And we have practice tomorrow anyway. I have to come back."

Eased by the latent anxiety edging those words, Sasuke grunted an affirmative. But the next promise turned that bit of relief to a roaring wave of warning.

"And I've got a fox to kill."

"You're not killing anyone." Sasuke was sitting up in bed now, feet searching for sandals. If he had to take the moped to the capital in the freezing dead of night, Naruto would have hell to pay. "Naruto. I'm serious. Itachi did not put his career on the line for you to end up in jail for murder."

He hoped for an irritable knock-down, or maybe an oafish claim that he'd been joking. He got silence.

"Naruto," he growled. He was at the door now.

"He _broke my family_."

Itachi's bedroom light snapped on; Sasuke could see it under the crack of the door. "And you think he's not using you now just like he did back then?" he demanded, exasperated. But mostly scared. The coat closet's door squealed in protest and he wrenched it wide, grabbing for his thickest winter coat shoved in the very back. "You said he sent a message today. You said he knows something about your parents. Do you somehow imagine that he didn't leave room for all of this? That he somehow didn't consider you believing your dad's story or something? That you wouldn't come looking for revenge? Look, you complete and utter idiot, I _know_ about broken family—" he had to stop, catch his breath, and come up with something to do about Itachi, who was standing between him and the front door, looking murderous.

"Of course I've thought of that," said Naruto tightly. "But. I can't. This time, I just can't."

"The hell—can't what—" Itachi was advancing towards him now, and Sasuke was feeling more than a little nervous.

"I should have killed him before."

"You telling me you tried?" Sasuke wished he was hearing this wrong.

Naruto laughed, a tired, frustrated, I-have-no-other-way-to-deal-with-life laugh. "No. If I'd gone through with it, I would have succeeded."

"Naruto. You're sounding stupider than usual." _You're scaring me._

"I let myself walk away," Naruto was saying. "'Cause I love him. Do you have any idea how messed up that is? I _love him. _Like... like a father. Or something. Hah. I'm so _messed up, _Sasuke, and it's all because of him, and I can't stop this time, I have to—have to do something before he finishes whatever this is he's started—it will never _end—"_

Sasuke crouched cold entryway tiles, and didn't mind too much when the 'you've disturbed my peace, you will pay' slant to Itachi's eyebrow lowered slightly into 'okay, now I'm worried, the _world _is gonna pay'. "Yeah, Naruto," Sasuke managed, after a moment. "It's screwed up. All of it."

"I don't wanna be like him," Naruto whispered. The rush of water—must be a shower, it was too loud for a tap—swallowed the words, but Sasuke caught the shape of them. "It's not—Sasuke, it's not—it's not revenge. Though I want that too. I want it bad."

Sasuke listened.

"I think he put us together so he can take us apart again."

Horror rushed down Sasuke's spine, built an ache in his chest.

"I... I got too independent. This is just another consequence."

"Naruto... is there something he wants from you?"

The line was quiet.

"...I gotta go. Gotta get in the shower before they come in to fish me out."

There were so many things Sasuke thought he should say, wanted to say, that no words would form.

"Just... pay attention. Don't go _near_ the Gates. Stay close to Itachi. Or let him stay close to you. ...Please."

"Worry about yourself, dead last."

Dial tone filled his ear. Sasuke wasn't sure if his last words had been heard, or not.

He didn't think it would make a difference either way.

.

vmomv

.

Curled between cold sheets, Hinata hugged a frog-shaped hot water bottle and stared at Naruto's plants. _I am so happy for you, Naruto-kun. _The thoughts grew from her heart as a prayer._ Please be well. Please be safe. There is so much joy waiting for you. I want to teach my child to be like you. You are everything bright and strong, warm and good... _Her child kicked, and she placed a hand over the spot, smiling through her tears.

_Naruto-kun... you saved us both... thank you..._

Tomorrow she would leave this apartment to settle in the home Neji-niisan arranged. The loneliness had already set in her bones, and for a moment she selfishly wished that Naruto could have been with her for one more night, that their life together could have lasted for one more morning.

But now Naruto would be free. With Minato and Kushina watching over him and providing for him, his life would be his own for the first time: he could study anything he wanted, travel anywhere he wanted, be with anyone he wanted...

_Be happy, Naruto-kun. Please, please be happy, and even if I can see it only from a distance, your smile will always be sunshine to me. _

_._

vlVlv

.

**A/N: happy summer :) **


	10. Chapter 9

The first time he stepped into the cage, he was so blinded by the chaos of crowding, shouting voices swirling upwards in clouds of cigar and cigarette smoke to the combined beams of a dozen hack-rigged spotlights that he didn't even see his opponent until he was looking up from the dirty floor mats, lungs jarred empty and ears ringing from that first kick to the jaw. The other boy was dancing away, grinning and jeering, and it was the eyes that were open too wide, showing too much white, that finally caught Naruto's panicked, skittering gaze, and locked him onto his purpose.

Fight.

The odds for the match had been 14:1 in the other kid's favor. Those few, lucky bastards who set their bets on the fresh meat, the Fox's brat, went home rich that night.

_Is it... like that? _Naruto wondered, watching the spaces between the capital and Konoha blur by the rear passenger window. The glass was cold against his forehead, the morning light washed pale through thick clouds hanging low, and he was glad no one in the car was forcing conversation.

_It's just a fight like any other, yeah? Focus. Just focus. _

His eyes fell shut, and a half-sleep crept up on him. It had been a long time since he'd felt this tired. Like his soul was tired. There was something empty, empty and hungry, in the place where all the self-loathing and desperate defiance tangled into Namikaze's rejection used to be. All these things he understood about the world were yanked up and now there was a great gaping hole and all the ugly roots were showing.

_Namikaze Minato is... my dad. The dad who was gonna find me. And he did. He found me. _

_(Too late.)_

It should all be gone, that bitterness, shouldn't it? What was wrong with him? He knew the truth now, the truth was enough—must be enough—

But only a lie had let in hope, after the lights and the ice and the window-that-wasn't. A lie built on emotion without logic, because even Naruto couldn't fight logic. The lie went like this: if Namikaze Minato didn't want him, it was because Namikaze Minato wasn't really his dad. He wasn't _that _Naruto. The lost Naruto. He was the Fox's Naruto, just like all the Nine-tails always told him. His _real_ dad was out there, somewhere, searching for him. Or his real dad was dead. Yeah, he was probably dead.

_I am Namikaze Naruto._

It sounded silly, the kind of ridiculous boast a lonely kid on a playground might shout to make his classmates actually look at him.

"Naruto? You doing okay?"

Concerned grey eyes met his through the rear-view mirror, and Naruto tried to smile. Namikaze was driving this time; Kushina was crocheting some sort of horned penguin horror in the front passenger seat, feet braced against the dash board, toes in toe-socks tapping in time to whatever it was Minato had turned the volume down on. If he wasn't so tired, so empty and anxious, Naruto might have laughed in delight over how familiarly jittery she was, how her body never held still.

_Just like me. _

_Isn't this, like, the happiest day of my life?_

"I'm okay. Mom."

Kushina's feet dropped abruptly to the floor mats. Her shoulders tensed. Her voice came low and wondering. "It's so, so strange, hearing that."

Something cold and cowardly knotted inside, and Naruto felt his cheeks flush, embarrassed. Kushina was twisting around in her seat, wiggling out of her seatbelt to maneuver freely and see him clearly, and all he could do was drop his head, avoiding her scrutiny childishly. Strong fingers caught his chin, forced it upward.

"_Aish,_ kiddo, you and your faces... I mean strange in the BEST WAY POSSIBLE, got it? In the 'all your prayers just came so true you can't believe it's really happening' way. THAT strange. NOT whatever 'oh no everyone's gonna reject me' horrible twisted 'strange' your poor brain is trying to interpret for you. Got it?"

There was a badly-restrained snort from the driver's seat.

"_S__o_much therapy in store for this family," grumbled Kushina, wriggling back into her seatbelt until she was sitting properly.

Naruto was still. He wondered if he would ever, could ever, get used to this.

.

piUiq

.

_We're on the way up,_ Minato thought. He looked at Kushina, and the glimpse of their son captured by the rear-view mirror, and back to the highway stretching ahead. _All of us. On the way up. _

_Finally._

It would be hard. Naruto didn't trust them, and they couldn't trust Naruto. Everything was tangled and uncertain and every shadow seemed sentient. But at least there was light, now. Light, Naruto, warm and breathing and sulking in the back seat.

_What did I expect?_ That was a hard question to answer. It wasn't that he'd envisioned some utopic happily-ever-after and couldn't deal with the disillusionment. It was that finding Naruto _was_ the happily-ever-after. Twelve years, twelve years of hopeless searching, false leads, dead ends, broken dreams, lost chances. Twelve years of believing that there was an end, that Naruto would come home, because believing anything else made every kind of future unbearable. If all the success and influence and power he'd built before the nightmare began did nothing to bring the nightmare to an end, it was all meaningless anyway.

He didn't mourn the loss of career. He'd kept enough threads running to ensure that there would always be funds for Naruto—for the search for Naruto, and for the misty happily-ever-after-dream when Naruto would be home. Financial security was not a problem. While every part of his social life and disintegrated to a degree, he had needed help—there could never be too many eyes looking for what they'd lost—and he'd forced himself to maintain every connection that might find a clue another might miss. To this end, his place in society continued to be significant. While no longer the upstart prodigy a generation ahead of his time, he was still smart, still respected, still favored. In perfect position to give an heir everything—absolutely everything.

And none of that actually mattered. None of that had kept Naruto from disappearing. None of that had brought him back. None of that would mend the rifts in their family, heal the broken marriage, erase the cold reality that parents and child were complete strangers, or break the influence of whoever it was their son so feared.

_But Naruto is home. _

...They just had to figure out where, and what, home was, exactly.

.

uIOIu

.

When Hyuuga Neji arrived at Naruto's apartment, his cousin was packed and prepared to depart, precisely as arranged. The slightly swollen appearance of the tissue around her eyes, the subtle downturn of her shoulders, and the longing glances cast guiltily over the place she was leaving were all observations he'd dreaded, but anticipated. The disruptive presence of Naruto's teammates, on the other hand, was as unwelcome as it was unexpected.

"I get what you're doing, Hina, and why—no, I _do_—but you _said _you'd tell Naruto—at least wait until he gets back—" that was the obscenely-haired one, Haruno. Uchiha, true to his truly lamentable family character, said nothing. He also filled the front doorway with a slouch and expression so eloquent, it would take a person far, far less perceptive than a Hyuuga to mistake the message as anything other than 'thou shalt not pass'.

Neji was not impressed.

"If you are ready, Hinata-sama?" he invited, having announced his presence with a polite throat-clearing.

Wide, pale eyes jumped to his. "Neji-nii-san!"

Haruno, too, looked up in surprise. Uchiha's eyes cut his, but he offered no other greeting.

_As expected of an Uchiha. No matter how fallen, they forever fail humility, courtesy, every form of gentility not granted through lineage alone... _

"I'm ready, Nii-san," murmured Hinata, and gripped the handle of her compact suitcase. Haruno frowned, but let it turn into a sympathetic grimace as Hinata's shoulders hunched, and moved aside as the latter stepped to the door. Uchiha didn't move.

"If...if you c-could let me p...pass, Sasuke-san," whispered Hinata.

Uchiha didn't move. Neji stepped forward threateningly.

In an unusual display of courage, Hinata looked up at the scowling boy in the doorway. "Sasuke-san, I understand you... Thank you, for watching over N..n...na—" she couldn't do it, couldn't say his name. Neji cringed. Inwardly, of course. On the surface, he had positioned himself within easy reach of Uchiha, and would move the foolish teenager by force if it came to it.

"Wait for him."

"If you would kindly _not _obstruct the passageway, Uchiha—" Neji kept his voice bland, the warning read perfectly in the cold slant of his eyes.

"Wait for him," said Uchiha, again, and Hinata was staring up at the obstinate boy, bottom lip quivering traitorously.

"I agree with Sasuke," said Haruno. Neji could feel a headache forming, just behind his eyes. This should be a simple procedure, and he had scheduled limited time—

"Naruto will be devastated if he comes back and finds his apartment empty," Haruno continued. "He's had some big shocks lately, and he hasn't been handling things all that well, you know? I know it's hard for you, but for Naruto's sake—"

There were tears condensing on Hinata's lower eyelashes now, and protective rage flared hot in Neji's chest. For Naruto's sake? Could they not see that she was leaving, _now,_ for Naruto's sake? Were the deepest longing and fear not plainly evident in her unguarded gaze? Was the sacrificial determination not stated baldly in the unconscious clenching of her jaw? Must they see her, humiliated, weeping at the feet of the object of her most ardent affection—

"Oh, hey, Neji," said Naruto. "And Sasuke? Sakura-chan—Hina-chan—what is this, you guys throw parties in my place when I'm not here or something?"

"Naruto," acknowledged Neji, a bit stiffly, glancing apprehensively towards Hinata to monitor her reaction to this... uncertain development. Behind Naruto, two disconcertingly familiar adults were emerging from the poorly lit stairwell.

"The Uchiha kid, again," complained the tall, blond, very famous man, and Neji felt his spine snap straighter as he whirled to attention.

"Hey, who's making Hina-chan cry?!" demanded Naruto, muscling past both Neji and Uchiha to put himself between Hinata and everyone; it seemed they had all been judged potential threats. "Is your family trying to get involved now, Neji? 'Cause I've got a few things to say to them! Don't worry, Hina-chan, we'll deal with this! We've made it through everything else successfully, yeah? Sasuke-bastard, _move—_"

Namikaze Minato, WoF wunderkind, legendary politician, former Prime Minister, and diplomat extraordinaire, was standing in Naruto's grimy, underlit apartment hallway. His estranged wife, who had her own abundant claims to fame, hopped in place next to him. Neither Haruno nor Uchiha seemed in any way surprised by their presence. Or Hinata, for that matter, though it was difficult to judge with how effectively she was disappearing into her bulky winter coat.

For one of very few times in his lifetime, Hyuuga Neji found himself at a loss for words.

"Let's move the fun and games inside, shall we?" ordered Uzumaki-san, and Neji found himself crowded, quite literally, into the apartment he'd come to move Hinata out of. Team 7 was arrayed automatically into what he recognized as one of several signature defensive formations (quite the brazen brawlers, those three), with Hinata somehow in the middle and he and their famous guests on the offensive side. Namikaze Minato, _the_ Namikaze Minato, closed the door softly behind them.

"Neji," said Naruto, with a hint of questioning tempered by that odd haltingly-respectful nod he so rarely offered, and stared at him with wary, calculating blue eyes.

Blue eyes. Blue eyes that were very, very like another pair of blue eyes in the room.

Hinata was crying. Silently, so silently, but the glint of morning sun slanting through Naruto's window glistened tiny reflections on her cheeks. Naruto's gaze darted between them, and he tightened the arm he'd slung around Hinata's shoulders, then settled back on Neji with that same, challenging stare.

"I came at Hinata-sama's request," Neji said, stiffly. There was too much he didn't understand here. Naruto's arm flexed again; Hinata quivered, but Neji attributed the movement to her suppressed sobs, and did not move to separate her from Naruto's hold.

"Hina... Hina-chan?" whispered Naruto, looking at the suitcase handle still clenched tightly in her right hand. Haruno watched him sympathetically, top teeth worrying bottom lip. Hinata took in a shuddering breath, let go of her suitcase, and used both hands to brush the tears from her face. She kept them there, hiding, breathing, for a moment, and when she looked up, her eyes held only determination.

"Let's... let's t-talk for a mo...moment, Narut-t-to-kun," she whispered, and under the pressure of five intense, worried stares, they stepped through their audience and into Naruto's tiny bedroom. The silence that followed the soft snap of the bedroom door closing was one of the most awkward Neji could recall experiencing.

They weren't gone long. Barely long enough for Haruno startle and gasp, send tellingly frantic looks from the two adults in the room to Neji and back again, and mumble a quickly suppressed, "Oh! He doesn't know—" before Uchiha's pointed glare and Namikaze-sama's shifting stance shut her up. She looked back at her teammate defiantly, but didn't seem inclined to continue with her account of what Neji didn't know.

Uzumaki-san held no such reservations. "We're Naruto's parents," she said, baldly, and leveled Neji with a look even his uncle would be hard pressed not to recoil from.

And, as Neji's world was cracking apart and chaotically rebuilding and his body stood in mute shock, his sweet cousin and her... boyfriend? ally? impregnator? protector? emerged from the other room.

Hinata looked... set. Poised. Determined. It had been a while since he'd seen her shoulders unbowed.

Naruto looked devastated.

They were holding hands.

"I'm ready, Nii-san," was all she said, and let her fingers untangle from the hand she loved most.

"See ya, then, Hina-chan," mumbled Naruto. His lips parted again, formed words. No sound crested them.

Neji made his gaze slowly sweep the room, trying to learn everything, everything in that strange array of faces. Beside him, Hinata opened the door.

"Then...we will be leaving first," Neji managed, and with a slight bow, followed his confusing cousin from the room. He took the suitcase from her, carried it carefully down four flights of stairs, one hand free and ready to reach out, to hold her up when she collapsed.

She didn't. As they settled into his car, fastened their seat belts, and pulled away from the place that must have been home to her for the past three months, Hinata was still. Still, dry-eyed, and silent.

No-Longer-Hyuuga Hinata, Neji witnessed, was done crying.

.

piXiq

.

Sakura didn't like what she saw in Naruto's face. From the way Sasuke was shifting, fingers flexing, clenching and stretching open again, he didn't like it any more than she did. For the first time since she started believing in this happily-ever-after, she found herself wishing the two adults in the room could not be there. That they could all go back to the way the world was spinning a week ago, when the blankness hollowing Naruto's eyes was a shadow breezily brushed away by in simple moments of warmth and companionship with the family he'd built himself, and made her a part of. When it was all about Team Seven and Iruka-sensei and Hina-chan and the other ice arena kids standing between one lonely lost boy with promise as big as the sky and all the dark he climbed from.

It was unexpectedly painful, peering in from the outside of that boy's inner circle. That center place belonged to new hearts—to a mother and father. But judging from the tense, uncertain eye-conversation said parents were attempting, they had no idea what to do, or even what to start trying first... so she stepped in and wove an arm through one of Naruto's, tangling her fingers with his, and Sasuke said, "usuratonkachi," in his most expressively frustrated I'm-here-to-help-you-cut-the-crap-and-let-me-do-it growl and shook Naruto by his other shoulder just so he could maintain contact for a moment.

"We still have practice today?" asked Naruto, and his voice sounded rough, and small.

"Hasn't been canceled," said Sakura. "Don't think Kaka-sensei would be surprised not to see us though."

Naruto looked up, scars stark against bloodless cheeks, eyes huge and a little bit bloodshot, and asked, "Can I go?"

He asked for permission. Their Naruto never asked for permission. Ever. From anyone.

Hovering over Naruto's other side, Sasuke let out breath that ended in a hiss, apparently as shocked as she was. Naruto's father watched the three of them, the skin around his eyes tensing into frown lines and crows' feet, worry written in the shifts of leg muscles and slope of his shoulders.

"It's harder to keep you where we can reach you in the arena," said Naruto's mother, and she didn't look any less on guard than his father did.

"I just... I just wanna play hockey," mumbled Naruto, and Sakura felt somewhat reassured by the familiar flavor of defiance creeping back into his expression.

And then it melted into something like submission, or desperation. "Can I... can I not do that? Play hockey?"

"You're still a run risk," Naruto's mother said quietly. Pressing closer to his side, Sakura felt the flinch, the tension captured and coiled. _Does he __really__ want to run, _she wondered,_ or does he just... n__ot want them__to __watch him__ cry?_

All the angles in the room felt sharper, all the corners growing dangerously pointed, and they stood at stalemate in the empty space Hina-chan left behind. There was so many freaking _feelings _in the room that there must not be enough left over for oxygen, because Sakura was beginning to feel a little dizzy.

"Why?"

They all turned abruptly to Sasuke.

"_Why? _Why do you get to come in and take control of someone's life? Naruto's lived well all this time, _without you. _So you found him. Congratulations. You're still nothing but strangers. _Random s__trangers_. What sort of entitlement is this, anyway?"

"Sasuke," said Naruto, and Sakura couldn't tell if it was a warning, or if he was just really uncomfortable.

"No, really, why, Naruto? Why are you asking them if you can go to practice? They're not WoF mentors. They're not part of your contract. They're not teachers or directors or CPA officers. Even if they were any of those people, people who actually have power over your possibilities, you wouldn't listen if they told you not to play freaking hockey. So why now? Parents? They've been here for a few days, and they get to be freaking _parents? _You guys are less the perfect happy ending family you're pretending to be and more like the punchline of a really cruelly stupid joke—"

"Sasuke—" started Sakura, with no idea where to go next, but Naruto's mom was stepping forward with blazing eyes and flying hair and Sakura was afraid she was going to _hit_ him—

Naruto beat her to it. Sasuke reeled back, white imprints of Naruto's knuckles rapidly filling in red. The corner of his bottom lip split, and a drop of blood welled. _There really wasn't enough air in this room,_ Sakura thought without distractedly, chest heaving as her too-fast breathing filled a second's silence.

"No," growled Naruto. "Don't you judge me, teme. Don't you dare judge me, you, you of all people, you _bastard_."

The wideness of Sasuke's eyes made Sakura almost-cry. Namikaze-san was holding Uzumaki-san, maybe preventing her from furthering Naruto's assault, but Naruto moved away from all of them, across the room and wrenching at the door before any of them had done more than inhale and move to chase after him.

The door was open. "You can get me some clothes, right?" it didn't sound like Naruto, that voice, and with nothing but her teammate's shaking shoulders to look at, Sakura couldn't fathom which emotion was writhing below it. "I don't want to come back here. Forget hockey. Let's—let's—let's go. Yeah. Let's go."

"Naruto," said Namikaze-san, quietly.

"I won't run," whispered Naruto, and this time Sakura could hear the panic, and the tears.

.

IuVuI

.

"Iruka-sensei, are you texting during class?"

Umino Iruka glanced up from his smartphone just long enough to deliver his best Beware: Rabid Teacher glare. "Yes, Yuuki-kun, I am, and you know that if I am, it's because it is very, very important."

Iruka believed in rules. He believed in consequences. But he only knew how to live heart-first, and that required the occasional damning of rules—and damn the consequences.

_-__Are you okay? Are you with your parents right now?_ He typed back to Naruto's out-of-the-blue: _yo yo Irka-sensei ^^ ~!_

_-ya._

_-ya = yes to both counts? Did you sleep last night? Have you been eating?_

_-dude I know u havent rly met my mom but do u srsly think she wood let me go without eating. They give me snacks like every 20 min_

Iruka smiled. It was good to know that someone was mothering Naruto. He was frequently accused of doing it himself, but the reality was that he simply didn't have the time and resources to give Naruto all the good he deserved.

_-Good to hear. _

_-Irka-sensei_

_-yes, Naruto_

_-its a good thing right_

_-it?_

_-my parents_

_-I think it's a miracle that your parents found you, and that having them in your life will be a very good thing. But they're still people you don't know, and you can't force a relationship out of nowhere. So yes, a good thing, but also a hard thing_

_-do u think their good ppl_

_-I think they're good people, yes. But I don't know them so I can only guess based on what the general public knows about them. I think you can judge for yourself, Naruto._

There was a long pause, and Iruka re-read his messages to make sure he hadn't typed in words he wasn't sure Naruto could read.

_-i think i can trust them_

The ragged mix of fondness, elation, and worry was stirring about in Iruka's soul was becoming a physical ache, tugging away right in the middle of his chest. He tried to choose his words carefully, but they spilled onto the screen in a rush of sincerity instead.

_-that makes me so happy, Naruto! You're an excellent judge of character. Trust them. Build up from there._

_-ok  
thx sensei_

_-Any time. Really. _

For a moment, Iruka just stared the screen, wondering if everything was really going to be okay. It buzzed against his fingers as one last message appeared.

_-miss u Irka-sensei_

_-Learn how to type my name, you brat. I miss you too. All the time. So keep in touch. _

_I'll take you out for ramen. _

_When you have time._

He kept his phone in his hand, waiting for any further messages, but as he made the rounds of his classroom, checking each student's work and offering encouragement and correction, trying to stay focused so he could admonish his kids to do the same without descending into hypocrisy, no more messages came.

They all had problems, these kids; that's how they ended up in his classroom. Behavioral problems, emotional problems, academic problems... and there was always so much more going on behind the scenes, things that happened at home or in bathrooms or anywhere a nosey adult like Iruka couldn't see, and every day was its own _special_ tragedy, because all he could do was be there and make his classroom as much of a sanctuary as it could be within the limits of educational law and school hours. He fought for them because someone had to fight for them, and wrote their specialized education plans with all the reckless hope and strict realism seven years of teaching experience had taught him, and sometimes he even made a difference he could measure and then it seemed like it might all be worth it in the end. Most of the time he just poured everything in and tried to believe that one good teacher, one dedicated adult who acknowledged and valued each troubled existence, one human being looking up and seeing another human being could be the invisible shield fending off one more tragedy.

Some days it was really hard to believe. But Naruto happened.

Naruto. The kid who came in stunted and scarred, taught muscles under scratchy new clothes, saying he was twelve years old when no one would look at him and guess more than eight or nine.

He would have been about ten, actually, if Iruka was remembering the age of the thought-to-be-dead Namikaze child correctly. He was small even for ten. His guardian had enrolled him at the local middle school, who had referred him to Iruka's elementary school, because the middle school had no idea what to do with a kid who couldn't read. Iruka's school didn't know either. They just dumped him on Iruka and all his shiny ambitions and alternative educational philosophies he'd been annoying the veteran staff members with.

Iruka taught Naruto to read. Iruka discovered Naruto's uncanny ability for mental math. Iruka made Naruto promise not to hit someone in school, not anyone, for any reason, ever again, and Iruka administered the ice-packs and plasters when Naruto was too obedient, heartbreakingly obedient, and kept that promise through every playground scuffle and ganged-up bullying he so naturally became the brunt of.

Most of the wounds Iruka discovered, on the times he managed to catch Naruto in time and drag him into the classroom for validation and disinfectant, could not have been caused by pre-teen children, no matter how cruel those children could be.

So Iruka went to court. And got a job in the middle school. And saw that Naruto graduated from primary school, and was admitted to that middle school, and taken away from his guardian, and then taken away from a series of terribly unseeing foster families, until Naruto won his right to live as an emancipated minor.

And then Iruka got Naruto into WoF.

_thx sensei_

Such a simple text. It didn't take much, really, to be asbolutely sure that it really was, all of it, worth it.

.

vIvIv

.

"You haven't visited before."

_I didn't think you'd consent to see me, _thought Sasuke, and kept his lips resolutely pressed as all his courage went to lifting his eyes from the heavy countertop to the face behind the glass.

Uchiha Fugaku looked thin and old and not at all the father Sasuke came here to see. The folds parenthesizing the downturned mouth were as stern and dissatisfied as they'd been in every childhood memory, but the shoulders were slanting, as if he'd stood so long against frigid wind that he couldn't stand any other way. The eyes cut sharp and cold, precise, without passion.

"You've grown tall."

Sasuke nodded once, dumbly, like a tongue-tied child.

"Well?"

_Don't you dare judge me. _

"You mother seemed well when I saw her last. Has something happened in the interim?"

Cursing the words for mixing in his head instead of marching firmly from his mouth, Sasuke shook his head again, this time in the negative. Two months. Two months and eight days. In two months and eight days, his father's term would end, and they would be a family again. So he told himself for years, looked forward to, prepared himself for. Had thought he was prepared for.

The frown was deepening, displeasure etching all the new lines on his father's face as deep as the old ones. Fugaku cleared his throat, and Sasuke forced himself to hold his gaze, to do something, _anything,_ to earn more than disregard in his father's eyes.

"Mother is well," he nearly choked on the stiffness of the words, but they came. "We...we are all waiting for you." _Where will Itachi go? _The thought came suddenly, unbidden, glaring blinding light through the dusty mental windows of internal avoidance and denial. He had hated Itachi, at first, or tried to, but then... but then Itachi was Itachi, and as long as Sasuke was Sasuke he would love and resent Itachi in equal measure. Helplessly.

_Itachi won't live with us anymore. He can't, not if Father comes home._ And Naruto's face, fine muscles stretched in fight-or-flight grimace, blue eyes burning and: DON'T YOU DARE JUDGE ME, YOU, YOU OF ALL PEOPLE, _you bastard._

"There's... there's a championship game," said Sasuke. The season schedule he'd printed as an excuse for this visit shivered slightly in his fingers, so he kept it hidden below the window until he could make his hands stop shaking, not give this lack of control away. "Against Suna. Or possibly Kumo. But most likely Suna. I wanted to come... to come to invite you. To the game. It will be the first game after... it will be in seventy-five days." _You are free in sixty-nine days. _

"Hockey?"

Sasuke couldn't tell if his father's growl conveyed opinion or not. "Yes, father," he answered, and hoped that hockey was still acceptable. It had been—before.

"You are inviting me to the championship game, seventy-five days in advance, before the championship has begun?"

This time it was easier to meet his gaze, let the experience of his own abilities shine through—even if only a little. "Yes, father."

The sound that came next was so startling, so far from anything Sasuke had steeled himself for, that it took a beat before he could accept what it was.

Fugaku chuckled. It was a brief, aborted sound, but it held mirth, and it was a chuckle.

"Ah," said the man, leaning back from the window, shoulders drawing back to nearly fill his remembered frame. "I accept."

Sasuke looked up, brimming hope and sparking anxiety.

"Play in the championship. I will be there."

.

plYlq

.

"You can still play hockey, Naruto, we just need to get... get a plan working, something we can all work with. We're... pretty much starting a new life here. With a lot of complications. But we'll get things worked out. I promise."

"We know your championship's just months away, kid. I'm not going to miss seeing you play in that. Kakashi-brat said they need you to win."

"Yep. What your mom said. But since you don't seem to be up for a lot of talking right now... could you take a look at this?"

For the first time, Naruto spoke. "What is it?"

"It's a real estate catalogue. Would you like to choose a house?"

"...a house?"

"Or a flat. For us. All of us. To live in. Together. Along with a lot of security guards..."

"Fat lot of good your security guards have done so far, baka-no-Minato."

"It's not my fault our son is a ninja, Kushina darling."

"Heh. You're right. All your skills, kid, you got them STRAIGHT from me. Your Mama, the Amazing, Beautiful, Outstanding, Dauntless, Undefeated, One-and-only—"

"Tomato," whispered Minato. And ran.

For the first time, Naruto smiled.

.

opTqo

.

**A/N: **

Dear Readers,

Thank you for being readers. This story is a bit of a conundrum for me, as it is my favorite to write, the one I think about and care about the most, and, I think, the best piece of writing I have up on this site. It's also by far the least popular. Maybe it's because it's an AU, maybe it's because the summary's not great... (tried fixing it, prolly made it worse) ...maybe it's something else (any ideas)? Either way, every time someone follows/favorites/reviews this piece, I am incredibly happy. Much more so than with my other fanfics, because this one is much more important to me. And reviews are pure gold. Or pure pineapple, which is much better than gold. Although the few flames I have received in the duration of my fanfic writing stint have all been for this story. Huh. But please, spare me some pineapple. I'll answer this time! If you want an answer, and left a signed review, of course ^^ PINEAPPLE! (please :))


	11. Chapter 10

"...Where do we start?"

Haloed in lamplight and huddled over a hastily brainstormed notepad page, Kushina looked up at Minato and offered a helpless shrug.

"With the kids you and Obito were working with... where did you start?"

"That was a bit different," groaned Kushina. "For one, I wasn't one of the problems. And I don't think there's a kid in the world with a pile of problems as consternating as our kid's. Plus we don't even _know_ what most of the problems are. This is like trying to decide which colored wire to cut on a freaking bomb."

"Could you please avoid such accurate metaphors? I'm trying to hold back on the overprotective streak."

"Aw, sweetie. Even if you're doing a terrible job of the not being overprotective bit."

"Kushina. We've had him for three days. He successfully ran away twice, hinted that it's not safe for us to be his parents because someone dangerous and with significant influence over him hates us; purposefully misled us and Kakashi, hacking into your email and booby-trapping Rin to do so; tried to run away a third time, got into a fight that started with him being strangled and ended with him doing the strangling, passed out during a panic attack, broke up with his pregnant girlfriend, and punched his best friend in the face for questioning his motives. I'd say anything short of a locking him in a panic room with a fully armed escort is doing a pretty decent job of holding back. Give me some credit, hey?" By the end of his recitation, Minato had run out of fingers to tick, so he waggled them all at Kushina to make his point.

"Okay okay, here's your credit. When you put it like that... sheesh. I told you I'm proud of you. Now back to the list."

"Yes." Minato skimmed over their notes again, and stabbed a bullet point. "School. We can tackle that one. Let's meet with the WoF directors before any of this gets out just to make sure they'll handle things gracefully, because as long as he can stay in WoF, school is taken care of. Though he might need a tutor to help bring up his grades."

"Makes sense," agreed Kushina. "He's broken an awful lot of WoF standards, but if Kakashi's managed to keep all of that quiet this far, risk should be pretty low. Plus extenuating circumstances. So many extenuating circumstances..."

"...Including the extenuating circumstance where he seems to have gotten another WoF pupil pregnant."

Kushina let out a long breath. "Yeah. That too. We need to talk about Hinata."

"What happened at the apartment today? I interpreted things as Hinata having made her own decision to leave and Naruto accepting it, but I couldn't piece together how or why. What did you see?"

Kushina was quiet, thinking the question over. What had stood out to her most? First she'd been worried about Hinata, and Hinata's child—she couldn't bring herself to accept the word _grandchild_ quite yet, but the idea had lodged in her heart without even that much permission—and then she had seen Naruto's face, and reason was eclipsed.

"I saw my baby's heart get broken," she said, and wished she hadn't been some of the cause of it. "He was really, really sad, Mina-kun."

Minato sighed wearily. "I thought that was one part of his life, at least, that we could let him keep. Not that I can think about our kid having a kid for more than two thoughts without experiencing some mild internal hysteria, but, you know, if it's the gangs or the girlfriend, I have nothing against the girlfriend."

Kushina snickered and blew her nose, adding to a growing pile of used kleenex. "Mild inner hysteria indeed. Grandpa."

Minato ignored her. "Hinata's a good girl. I'd stake a lot on that belief, and I'm glad she's part of Naruto's life. Maybe we just need to communicate that to her more clearly."

"Yah. Here's the deal. We track down whichever Hyuuga crony rushed her away today, tell him we'll cut off all his pretty hair if he doesn't reveal where he's stashed our precious baby's sweetheart, break into her hideout, make her promise to stop stepping on Naruto's heart and convince her we're motivated by more than keeping our potential grandchild within reach as we cart her off to live with us... all very sensitively and diplomatically-ttebane. You wanna drive?"

"Absolutely. Let's call her first, of course. It's only polite to schedule an appointment when carting off a damsel-causing-distress." Tapping up a contact from his address book, Minato slid his phone across the table for Kushina's perusal.

"You hacked Naruto's phone. Already."

"It didn't even have a security code—no hacking, no foul. And you took time to notice Hyuuga-kun's luscious hair."

"Your locks are turning grey, Mina. I have to fulfill the lust for luscious somewhere." Only half-present in their banter, Kushina stared at Minato's screen, where Hinata's name and number offered new problems and solutions to sort through.

"We need to include Naruto in these decisions as much as we can," she said, reluctantly diving back into the deep end of their conversation. "He knows more than we do, he's used to making his own decisions, and he doesn't trust us. We have a much better chance at making things work if we're all on the same side, and even if you and I will always be on Naruto's side, I don't think he sees things that way. So let's put him in the loop and see if he stays there."

"Then we're back to the ticking bomb analogy. Every time we begin to introduce a decision, there's a volatile reaction we weren't prepared for—hmm, maybe we should switch our morbidly violent comparison from bomb to minefield? As much as Naruto isn't ready to trust us, we already know we can't trust him."

"Don't give up so easily, Minato. After what we saw today, I think we can trust him—trust that he is really trying to give us a chance. Try to see things from his perspective."

"I've never given up, Kushina."

Silence flowed in from the shadows, heavy with all the years Minato existed only for the impossible, while Kushina learned to live with the probable. She put a hand on his forearm, giving warmth hesitantly. The muscle twitched and tensed beneath her fingertips.

"I didn't mean it that way. Sorry for saying it, though."

"It's the variables, Kushina. Enemies we know exist—and nothing else. We can't let everything be variable. We have to make some constants... you know what I can't stop wondering? How many hours we have left with him."

"Minato..."

"There's nothing I can control here. Nothing I can make constant. I've been fighting this invisible adversary since the moment Naruto disappeared and I haven't won against them once. I have very little confidence that what is happening now—Naruto being with us, right now—is anything but the feint before checkmate. Naruto is just the last piece on the gameboard."

"That's not truth," snapped Kushina. "That's theory, not truth. And even if it's true, we can't think that way. It's paralyzing. "

Minato said nothing.

"What would they want from you? You already gave up everything. Your political career, your home in Konoha...me."

"Two out of three," said Minato, quietly. "Giving you up... I can't do it."

"Oh," she said, and the warmth of her hand pressed deeper with the new strength of her grip. "Oh. Don't. Don't give up."

They lived a small time together in the lamplight. Then, "Okay," said Kushina. "Let's get Naruto. Let's show him our list. Ask himwhere to start. We'll just keep not giving up, yeah?"

"Mmm," agreed Minato, and together they stood.

.

xiIix

.

Naruto braced his arms and bowed his head and tried to think of nothing at all but hot water rushing over him.

It was a good thing he'd already established that he liked long showers. Which he didn't—but when everything you did was watched by a team of professional bodyguards as well a two strangers who were also your parents, any excuse for a little privacy was golden.

He probably shouldn't have hit Sasuke. Sasuke shouldn't have said that about his parents. Weren't they doing what parents were supposed to do? And Hinata-chan—

_Water, _he forcefully redirected. _Lots and lots of water. Feels just like any other water. Like the locker room showers or my apartment's shower or—_

_You need to protect your family, _Hinata had said, one hand on his cheek, big pale eyes staring earnestly up at him. _You're my family, _he said, and the smile she showed him then made him feel all warm and broken all at once, like he did something that made the world extra beautiful but it would last only a day before it was gone forever. _Neji-nii-san will protect me, _she promised. _He will take care of me and B...baby-ch-chan. You need to take care of you, now, okay? Okay, Naruto-kun? You get to be a son now, you get to make your mom and dad proud, you get to see them s-smile at you, please, Naruto-kun? _

Of course that didn't convince him. But she stepped back anyway, dropped her gentle hand, stopped looking at him, hid her believing eyes. _Pl-please, __please__ understand... __I don't l...like the lights, Naruto-kun. There will be s...so m-many reporters, and-and-and cameras, and c-crowds, and qu...questions. I d-don't want them to s-say th-things about this child. __About us.__ I don't want-t them t-to m-make up st-stories. P-please, Naru__-__naru-t-t-_

What could he do?

_Okay, _he said, so she could breathe again, speak again. O_kay, Hinata-chan, but—_

She was looking up at him again, and it was like when the sun pierces holes in the clouds, making these glowing lines of light dancing down to the cold grey ground, like when he imagined that it was angels looking out for people that made the light do that, and he couldn't finish.

_Thank you, _she breathed, looking like light. He wanted to tell her so many things. Things about what it felt like, coming home to her. Things about the baby he was waiting so anxiously to meet, about how he loved that baby so much he couldn't breathe sometimes, even though when he saw pictures of twenty-two-week-old in-belly babies they mostly looked like aliens. About how the day he saw her fighting off her aunts in front of the clinic and got to rescue her by against-the-rules stopping his bus and blocking all the traffic was one of his favorite memories, ever, and that the food she cooked was the most delicious he ever tasted, except maybe Ichiriku-san's ramen. That waking up in the dead of night and remembering she was there reminded him it really was a good thing, living.

He didn't tell her anything. She was right. She didn't need him and the mess of his life spilling into hers. She had enough hard things to deal with. Now that she knew Neji hadn't sided with the rest of their family, that he wouldn't just turn Hinata over to her father like he was supposed to, that he could and would support her, Neji was obviously the better choice.

She left.

What was he going to do, anyway, marry her? He had thought about it, a bit. He probably wasn't in love with her, he didn't think about her all the time and have weird dreams and stuff like he had with other girls he'd crushed on, but he loved being close to her. At first she was so weird and shy that they could hardly even talk to each other and she was always turning red and having trouble breathing and stuff and it make him feel awkward, anxious, and confused. But then she started showing up on his bus routes all the time and the look in her eyes (when he was lucky enough to catch a glimpse before they were hidden beneath all those dark lashes) was something he had never seen in someone looking at him before, and it made his insides feel funny in a really bubbly-good kind of way, and she was so cute and mysterious and _different _from all the other kids he knew, until seeing her standing with her perfect posture and her blushing cheeks as he pulled a bus up to a curb became one of his favorite things in the world.

And then she had needed help, and he was there when she needed it, and he got to save her.

_Thank you, Naruto-kun. _

Naruto slammed the water off, found a towel to shove his face in, pretended it was only shower water his face needed drying from. _I don't cry, _he told himself furiously, _I don't. _ It wouldn't have been a lie, a week ago. There were new clothes set out on the counter: one set of dozens Namikaze Minato had picked out just for him, crazily, giddily happy that he could finally "do something like a dad". Kushina has lasted all of fifteen minutes into the shopping expedition before throwing in the towel (or a few boxed sets of designer boxers, in this case) and stalking off in search of a "chocolate-chocolate milkshake with hot fudge and triple malt, some caramel on top". Rin-san and Sasuke's weird relative showed up within minutes and split up just as quickly. Obito legged it after Kushina, looking very relieved to have an excuse not to compare denim washes, as Rin and Minato were already blissfully doing.

Naruto just stood in the dressing room, and tried things on, and let Rin exclaim over how handsome he was, and stole looks at his dad, who looked like he didn't know what to do with himself, like he was happy and didn't remember how to be.

He didn't look like himself in the new clothes. But it was either put them on or dress again in the rumpled tracksuit he'd put on the day before, when he was planning his escape into the underground and missing the Takigakure game and ended up finding memories in Millenium Stadium and sleeping fully-clothed in a hotel room he shared with his father somewhere in the too-bright center of the Capital.

It hit his sixth sense first; he was barely into the silky new boxers when the hair stood up on his arms and the base of his scalp tingled in warning. There was a half-formed thought where he wished he was clothed—but there was only the bedroom door between the intruder in his bedroom and the other people in the suite, very very important other people, so the knife he'd stashed under the towels was in his hand and he was shoving at the door before his brain had named what his instincts were screaming at him.

He didn't know if it was the window latch he'd heard or a stray footstep, but the window was closed and the security cameras were still methodically sweeping when he burst through the door and leapt for the protective shadow of the wardrobe. He knew all exits were alarmed and there were two bodyguards just outside the door and more watching the feeds from the CCTV in a hastily assembled safe room. He still wasn't surprised to hear the low, creepy voice menacing from the too-black patch of twilight on the other side of the wardrobe.

"Naruto. What are you doing?"

"Showering," he said into the dark. "Can't you smell the soap? It's like a flying angel crashed and puked flowers on my head." Maybe he recognized that voice; fierce relief filled up his chest fast enough to make him dizzy. Cold caution kept him still.

"Were you shaving as well, or do you always shower with a knife?"

_It IS him! _A little unbalanced by the second surprise of the completely expected ambush, Naruto peered around the edge of the wardrobe, the blade in question snapping shut. "Gaara?!"

.

UoOoU

.

Gaara stood still and absorbed the damp Naruto-attack, wondering which would run out first, his patience or their time.

Naruto was in the middle of an anxious-slash-elated flood of questions Gaara hadn't had a breath of a chance to answer when the bedroom door smashed open. Security agents with tasers (and two with weapons considerably more lethal) stormed the room, cutting around them to block the bedroom window and bathroom door, all but one low-volt taser pointed carefully at Gaara's vital points. At least, Gaara mused, they knew enough to keep _something_ trained on Naruto. Even such a useless something.

Naruto went from over-enthusiastic hug to defensive stance with his usual perfect reflexes. The knife was out and he angled his body into lines of fire from as many angles as possible, protecting Gaara, teeth bared and limbs ready.

_Time, _concluded Gaara, watching Naruto fondly, and not moving. Two new agents stepped in and completed a thorough sweep of the room as Naruto's laborious thought-process finally caught up with his instincts, and he dropped out of fight-ready and crashed into blooming mortification. His cheeks and ears were burning a fetching pink as he straightened from a half-crouch to slump dejectedly against Gaara, still playing the human shield, and slowly, explicitly, tapped his blade into its handle. He tossed the weapon at the nearest booted feet and let it be snatched up by a gloved hand while he slapped his own palms over his blushing face.

"Aw, shit. Sorry. This... this is embarrassing."

Gaara carefully patted one bare shoulder. "We can tell them I'm your lover," he offered tonelessly, as Uzumaki Kushina and her notorious husband stepped wide-eyed into the room.

"Naruto!" gasped Namikaze-san. "Are you—is everything—are you okay?"

There was a short, extremely awkward pause.

"Hmm," said Kushina-sama, once everyone had a moment to look around and shift uncomfortably. "We were gonna tie you up and pluck your nose-hairs you until you revealed what you are to Naruto and how you got past security and most importantly _why-_ttebane, but I think I know who you are, and now all I really want to know is: are you the real reason Naruto dumped his pregnant girlfriend today? 'Cause being gay is fine and all, or bi or whatever, but knocking a girl up and then letting her go off with her stick-up-his-derrier Hyuuga-jerk cousin is just not okay. Don't tell me you condone that."

"Kushina," groaned Namikaze-san, but he seemed to be far more preoccupied with Naruto's scars. There were many, each its own engraved story, and they covered most of the boy's torso.

"Um," said Naruto. "I'm... gonna get dressed. Right now. Just in that bathroom, don't make them follow me because I can and will maim anyone who follows me right at this moment." And he disappeared back into the bathroom he'd so recently emerged from, mostly uncontested, leaving Gaara to face two hyper-protective parents and a full platoon of professional security agents who'd just walked in on a nearly-naked boy embracing a dangerous intruder solo.

"Actually, I still really want to know how he got past security," muttered Namikaze-san, staring at the door his son had disappeared through. "And there're no exits in there, like a hole or a vent that anything bigger than a half-grown cat could get through, you're absolutely certain?"

"I'M RIGHT HERE, _DAD!_" yelled Naruto, followed by a bang and a curse as he hit an elbow or stubbed a toe or something.

"We should probably stop pointing guns at the Prince, here," said Kushina, eyeing Gaara a little too appreciatively. "You look good in leather, Sabaku-no-Gaara."

"You're looking rather lovely yourself, Kushina-sama," Gaara returned courteously.

"If you're done flirting," interrupted Namikaze. "How did you get in? No—first—_why_ are you here?"

Gaara waited until he had everyone's glares to level with, before announcing calmly: "Naruto needs a bodyguard. And," he added, as the Naruto in question emerged in checkered lounge pants and a charcoal-colored long-sleeved tee that was nothing like Gaara had ever seen him in before, "a warning."

.

vwVwv

.

Long legs stretched across the hallway between their bedroom doors, causing Itachi to note, with both pride and dismay, how tall Sasuke was growing. He might surpass his big brother, given a few more years. Itachi hoped so. Outpacing Itachi in any way made Sasuke irrationally happy.

His little brother had earbuds in with the volume turned up loud enough that Itachi could hear and name the song his brother was listening to from the end of the hallway, and with his head tipped back against the wall and his eyes closed, breath slow and shallow, he appeared to be either asleep or close to it. His bottom lip was swollen and split at the corner, a subtle blossoming of pale purple outlining the adjoining bruise. Itachi frowned. According to the gps signal of Sasuke's mobile phone—an item he was as likely to willingly part with as the hand that held it—Sasuke had spent the morning at Naruto's flat, wandered a nearby park for a while (skipping hockey practice, but Itachi knew well enough that the dramatic changes in Naruto's life made ripples large enough to upset his entire team's schedule, and had let his brother be), and then, to Itachi's wonderment, traveled to the detention center where Father was incarcerated.

An unusual day, to be sure, but not one expected to leave marks.

"Otouto?"

He hadn't expected to be heard, but wide dark eyes blinked open; in the same moment the music was silenced and the earbuds gone and a floor full of lanky fifteen-year-old flowed up to fill more vertical lines. "You're late," said Sasuke.

He was. He had research to do, after office hours and professional dedication to his official caseload ended for the day. He reached out to angle Sasuke's chin, the better to examine the injury there; Sasuke let him, immediately twisting habitual protective concern into full-alert anxiety.

"Naruto did it," Sasuke blurted, and immediately looked angry with himself for it.

Itachi sighed. He approved of this friendship, was deeply thankful for it, but he would never, ever understand it.

"No teeth loose, this time?"

Sasuke scowled, and Itachi considered him. Physically, he seemed well, bruised face notwithstanding. There were signs of insufficient rest, but he did not have chapped lips, an unfocused gaze, dry tear ducts, or any other signs of dehydration, severe sleep deficit, or a compromised immune system. His hands and forearms didn't show any reddening or swelling, indicating that the altercation with Naruto had been a one-sided assault, and Itachi had seen him eat a balanced breakfast less than twelve hours previous.

"...Are you here because I was late?"

Sasuke held a moment of mulish silence, or perhaps he was just gathering bravery, because the when the words did come Itachi could _hear _how much pride each syllable cost. "I...Nii-san... can we talk?"

Itachi invited him in wordlessly, and closed the bedroom door behind them. He sat on his bed. Sasuke sat beside him. A worrying mental catalogue of possible scenarios that would provide an adequate context for the level of anxious gravity his foolish otouto was currently exhibiting typed itself out in his mind: coming out as homosexual and/or something to do with Father's prison term ending topped the list.

"Otou-san is coming home soon," said Sasuke.

Aha. "He is."

"When he comes home, you'll... leave?"

They had to talk about it sooner or later. Itachi had privately hoped for later—possibly even after the fact, in which case the conversation would be moot, and wouldn't have to happen at all. He built his sentences carefully.

"I... will be living in my own apartment, yes. It has two bedrooms. You will always be welcome."

His brother's shoulders bunched unhappily. Itachi empathized; there were no perfect solutions here. From the beginning, Sasuke battled against his hurdle of an older brother to reach their father; before because Fugaku only saw Itachi, and after because Itachi betrayed Fugaku. Sasuke was left in the middle, all his formidable capacity for love and devotion split so treacherously they cleaved a whole boy down the middle. Sasuke could not choose both: there was only the father he'd always longed for, or the brother who had always been in there Father's stead.

But Sasuke chose both by choosing neither, and cracked and broke and nearly destroyed himself in the aftermath of it.

Naruto put him together again.

"How is Naruto?"

Sasuke glanced up sharply, and Itachi was startled to see forced-back tears tinting redness at the edges of his tired eyes. Sasuke hid his face just as quickly, retreating behind long bangs.

"Different."

Itachi wished for half the wisdom he was both praised and vilified for. "Naruto is pretty constant." Truth, but Sasuke needed validation, not rebuttals. Itachi was much better at the latter. "It is natural for him to show some sides of himself you may not have seen before; the unfolding situations are things he has never encountered before."

Sasuke's shoulder twitched.

"I predict a return to his habitual roguery sooner than Konoha is prepared for," comforted Itachi, and poked his otouto in the forehead. Sasuke didn't brush his hand away, like he always did; he lurched from the bed and through the doorway, through his own bedroom, and out his bedroom window. Staccato, sprinting footsteps faded across the lawn and all Itachi could do was stay and fear: was it wet, the face he glimpsed, as Sasuke ran?

.

quUup

.

Sakura was beating up the punching bag she'd sacrificed her bedroom door to hang when Sasuke threw himself through her window, grabbed her by the shoulders, barely blocked her reflexive uppercut jab, stared wild-eyed at her face, caught a glimpse of her phone over her shoulder, and abandoned her in favor of snatching the device up and demanding that she swipe in her password so he could check for messages from Naruto.

Sakura's boys: forever infuriating.

Sakura hadn't heard from Naruto. She didn't think he had his old phone on him, and if his parents had given him a new one, she didn't have his number.

She expected Sasuke to leave again, and wished he wouldn't. Though she had no bedroom door and her mother might amble down the hallway at any moment, the blaring TV in the family room was more than enough to drown out any conversation Sakura and Sasuke had. Some risks were worth taking.

"Sasuke," she said. Her eyes willed him to actually talk with her, be honest with her. For once. "How safe is Naruto?"

He scoffed at her. "You saw the personal security platoon."

"I saw you get past the security platoon," she answered coolly.

His silence conceded her point. He jabbed distractedly at her punching bag, walked a small circle around her room, settled on her windowsill.

And, finally, spoke.

"I don't think he's safe."

It took her a moment to gather again the breath that had left her; her voice came out too small. "Can't Namikaze-san keep him safe?"

"No one can," said Sasuke, eyes and voice flat. The muscles of his upper arms and shoulders rippled and bulged and he rolled his neck, exuding agitation. Maybe he saw her shudder, because then he softened around the edges, a little bit. "Maybe he can. Naruto. Keep himself safe."

Sakura snorted. The blankness around Sasuke's mouth lightened into what could almost be a sardonic half-smile, but he held her eyes like he meant exactly what he'd said.

"Naruto gets himself into more trouble than anyone can get him out of," said Sakura, fearful and frustrated. "You mean power and money and intelligence can't keep him safe, but his own special brand of idiocy can?"

"He's not an idiot."

There was a pause.

"I know, Sasuke," she said, "I know. Except he kind of is. About us. About anyone who counts as his 'precious person'."

"So take care of yourself, so he doesn't have to," snapped Sasuke.

Sakura met his stare and raised it, chin thrust upward and eyes narrowed defiantly. "And can all of his precious people just 'take care of themselves'? I'm flattered, but not delusional, and even you aren't untouchable. I was... I was hoping his parents would be some sort of guarantee, you know? I've been really worried, since Hinata—but—"

Sasuke listened better than he usually did, up until Sakura's phone chimed.

"It's not Naruto," she said crossly, after retrieving the phone from his snatching fingers to unlock the screen and check her messages. "But it is trouble."

The text was from Ino:

–_there are things you need to tell me, Forehead. don't pretend to be asleep cause i'll just show up at your window. _

–_Pig, _Sakura texted back.

–_Good girl. Now. WHAT'S UP WITH NARUTO_

"Don't tell her anything," Sasuke threatened. Sakura just rolled her eyes. There was nothing more dangerous than telling Ino nothing.

–_Not my story to tell._

–_uh-uh. TELL ALL THE STORIES_

Sakura stared at the screen, wondering what she could possibly type back that wouldn't fan the flames of Ino's gossip-honed, intuitive, horribly hazardous curiosity. Another message popped up.

–_So troublesome. Has someone filed for custody? Or has Hinata's family started something?_

"Crap," groaned Sakura. "Shika's with her."

Sasuke's fists clenched; they stared at the screen in companionable apprehension.

"Oh," moaned Sakura, hiding her eyes with her free hand. "Imagine... imagine Naruto plus paparazzi."

It might have been an exaggeration of her overwrought brain: Sasuke shivered.

.

ToYoT

.

"A warning?" asked Naruto, warily, once his parents had capitulated with the inevitable and accepted that Gaara wasn't going anywhere.

Heavily outlined eyes stared back at him.

"Naruto," said Gaara, "leave. Leave Konoha."

**A/N: Thank you so much for the pineapple! And some solid perspective/critiques. All were very, very helpful. **

**I will be editing old chapters; mostly just fixing typos, though I've re-written a couple scenes. **


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